GMAT Reading Comprehension

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Source: OG11th

Level: 3

Australian researchers have discovered electroreceptors (sensory organs designed to respond to electrical fields) clustered at the tip of the spiny anteater's snout. The researchers made this discovery by exposing small areas of the snout to extremely weak electrical fields and recording the transmission of resulting nervous activity to the brain. While it is true that tactile receptors, another kind of sensory organ on the anteater's snout, can also respond to electrical stimuli, such receptors do so only in response to electrical field strengths about 1,000 times greater than those known to excite electroreceptors.

Having discovered the electroreceptors, researchers are now investigating how anteaters utilize such a sophisticated sensory system. In one behavioral experiment, researchers successfully trained an anteater to distinguish between two troughs of water, one with a weak electrical field and the other with none. Such evidence is consistent with researchers' hypothesis that anteaters use electroreceptors to detect electrical signals given off by prey; however, researchers as yet have been unable to detect electrical signals emanating from termite mounds, where the favorite food of anteaters live. Still, researchers have observed anteaters breaking into a nest of ants at an oblique angle and quickly locating nesting chambers. This ability to quickly locate unseen prey suggests, according to the researchers, that the anteaters were using their electroreceptors to locate the nesting chambers.

Question List: 1 2 3 4 5 6

Which of the following can be inferred about anteaters from the behavioral experiment mentioned in the second paragraph?

  • A They are unable to distinguish between stimuli detected by their electroreceptors and stimuli detected by their tactile receptors.
  • B They are unable to distinguish between the electrical signals emanating from termite mounds and those emanating from ant nests.
  • C They can be trained to recognize consistently the presence of a particular stimulus.
  • D They react more readily to strong than to weak stimuli.
  • E They are more efficient at detecting stimuli in a controlled environment than in a natural environment.

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