Free SAT Practice Question

Question 1 of 1
ID: SAT-RW-II-048
Section: SAT Reading & Writing (RW) – Information and Ideas
Topic: Central Ideas and Details
Difficulty level: Easy

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A Venus flytrap does not snap shut the instant something brushes it. Each trap is lined with slender trigger hairs, and a single touch is not enough: the trap closes only after a hair is bent a second time within about twenty seconds. Further touches, of the kind a struggling insect provides, ramp up the digestive fluids the closed trap then releases. Botanist Idris Halloran describes this pattern as a rough tally that spares the plant from wasting energy on a raindrop or a windblown fleck of grit, either of which might bend one hair but would rarely repeat the signal in time.

Which choice best states the main idea of the text?

AA single touch to one of its trigger hairs is not enough to make a Venus flytrap close.

BBy requiring repeated touches before it closes, the Venus flytrap distinguishes genuine prey from harmless false alarms and avoids wasting energy.

CThe Venus flytrap is the only carnivorous plant capable of telling living prey apart from lifeless debris. On this claim no other carnivorous plant shares the ability, a distinction the passage, which describes just this one species, gives no basis for.

DWhen an insect struggles inside a closed trap, the Venus flytrap steps up its output of digestive fluids.

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