Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
A forager bee that finds a field of mustard in flower has a problem, and it is not a problem of flying. She must tell her sisters where the field is. She must do it inside a hive that is nearly dark, on an upright wall of wax, with no map and no words.
Her answer is the waggle dance. She runs a short straight line across the comb, shaking her body from side to side, then loops back and repeats it. Two details carry the message. Straight up on the comb stands for the direction of the sun outside, so a run tilted forty degrees to the right of straight up means forty degrees to the right of the sun. The length of the run stands for distance: the farther the field, the longer the waggle. Her followers see very little in the dark, so they keep close and read the figure through their antennae. It is a remarkable piece of compression, a direction and a distance packed into a few seconds of shaking.
The Austrian zoologist Karl von Frisch worked this out over years of patient experiments, and in 1973 he shared a Nobel Prize for his studies of animal behaviour. In some quarters his account was met with incredulity. A few researchers argued that the recruits simply followed the scent of flowers clinging to the dancer, and that the dance was mere excited fuss. The objection was fair, and it led to sharper tests. Decades later, scientists fitted bees with tiny radar tags and tracked their flights. The recruits flew off in the direction the dance had shown, though scent helped them over the last stretch to the flowers.
Which of the following statements are NOT true according to the passage?
(A) The dance is performed on an upright surface inside the hive.
(B) The length of the straight run tells the followers which way to fly.
(C) The radar studies found that scent plays no part in bringing recruits to the flowers.
(D) The Nobel Prize that von Frisch received in 1973 was awarded to him alone.
Choose the correct answer from the options given below:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → (B), (C) and (D) only
The question asks for the statements that are NOT true.
(A) The dance is performed on an upright surface inside the hive. — True.
- The passage says the bee dances “on an upright wall of wax” inside the hive.
(B) The length of the straight run tells the followers which way to fly. — Not true.
- The length shows distance: “the farther the field, the longer the waggle”.
- The direction comes from the angle of the run.
(C) The radar studies found that scent plays no part in bringing recruits to the flowers. — Not true.
- The passage says “scent helped them over the last stretch to the flowers”.
(D) The Nobel Prize that von Frisch received in 1973 was awarded to him alone. — Not true.
- The passage says he “shared a Nobel Prize”.