Free SAT Practice Question

Question 1 of 1
ID: SAT-RW-EI-045
Section: SAT Reading & Writing (RW) – Expression of Ideas
Topic: Rhetorical Synthesis
Difficulty level: Hard

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While researching animal cognition, a student has taken the following notes:

Biologists have long assumed that only large-brained mammals can plan for future needs.
Researcher Priya Malhotra ran a series of food-storing trials with western scrub-jays, a type of bird.
The jays stored more food in a spot where they had learned that food would be scarce the next morning.
They did this even when they were not hungry at the moment of storing.
Malhotra concluded that the jays were acting on an anticipated future need, not their current state.

The student wants to emphasize how Malhotra's finding challenges the long-standing assumption about planning. Which choice most effectively uses relevant information from the notes to accomplish this goal?

AIn Malhotra's trials, scrub-jays stored more food in a spot where they had learned food would be scarce the next morning.

BMalhotra's work with scrub-jays adds to what scientists have learned about the minds of animals. It joins a broad and growing body of research that, year after year, keeps turning up new and unexpected abilities in creatures once assumed to be governed by simple instinct alone.

CBiologists have found that large-brained mammals can plan ahead, and Malhotra's scrub-jays likewise stored food for a time when it would be scarce.

DAlthough biologists had long assumed that only large-brained mammals can plan for the future, Malhotra found that scrub-jays stored extra food for a time they had learned would be lean — even when not hungry — suggesting that these birds, too, can act on future needs.

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