19/8/2021 Reading Quiz #1: Virtual 202108 Avanzado 11 19:30-21:00

Reading Quiz #1
Due
No due date
Points
5
Questions
1
Available
Aug 9 at 8:40pm - Aug 9 at 9:10pm
30 minutes
Time Limit
10 Minutes

Instructions
Instructions:

There are 5 questions in this quiz.

Read the text and choose the correct answers accordingly.
You will have 10 minutes to answer this quiz.

This quiz was locked Aug 9 at 9:10pm.

Attempt History
Attempt Time Score
LATEST Attempt 1 9 minutes 2 out of 5


Correct answers are hidden.

Submitted Aug 9 at 8:51pm

Partial
Question 1 2
/ 5 pts

Read the following text and answer the questions below:

Evolution of Animal Intelligence – Part I 

There are many scientists who study the mental abilities of animals. As
intelligent animals ourselves, we are keen to learn whether other species
share our skills, and how our vaunted smarts evolved. (1) We see study
after study about whether chimpanzees care about fairness,
whether pigeons outsmart humans at a classic math problem,
whether cuttlefish can remember where, what, and when, or
whether (and how) parrots and crows use tools. 
https://icpna.instructure.com/courses/21169/quizzes/77553 1/3
19/8/2021 Reading Quiz #1: Virtual 202108 Avanzado 11 19:30-21:00

But animals are hard to work with. You need to design tests that
objectively assess their mental skills without raising the specter of
anthropomorphism, and you need to carefully train them to perform those
tests. These difficulties mean that researchers mostly resort to small
experiments with just one species, often with their own bespoke tasks.
This makes it extremely hard to compare species or pool the results of
separate studies. If a lemur behaves differently to a monkey in separate
experiments, is it because of some genuine biological difference, or
some quirk of the respective studies? 

These problems mean that the study of animal intelligence is rich but
piecemeal. Each study adds a new piece to the jigsaw, but is everyone
even solving the same puzzle? 

Evan MacLean, Brian Hare, and Charles Nunn from Duke University have
had enough. (2) They led an international team of 58 scientists from
25 institutes in studying the evolution of one mental skill—self-
control—in 567 animals from 36 species. 

Chimpanzees, gorillas, baboons, marmosets, lemurs, squirrels, dogs,

elephants, pigeons, parrots and more tried their hands (or trunks or beaks
or snouts) at the same two tasks. “It was literally a mouse-to-elephant
study,” says MacLean, “or at least a Mongolian-gerbil-to-elephant study.” 

“I think it’s really showing the future of the field of cognition,” says Karin
Isler from the University of Zurich. (3) “Instead of just giving glimpses
and suggestions, and sometimes contradicting evidence, one can
find convincing explanations for the evolution of cognitive
abilities.” 

The team focused on self-control—the ability to stop doing that, put that
down, eat that later. Animals exercise it when they stop themselves from
mating in the presence of a dominant peer, when they forgo an existing
source of food in favor of foraging somewhere new, or when they share
resources with their fellows. In humans, a child’s degree of self-control
correlates with their health, wealth, and mental state as adults.

1. What is the article mainly about? [ Select ]

2. In paragraph 2, it is stated that... [ Select ]

3. What is stated in paragraph 3? [ Select ]

https://icpna.instructure.com/courses/21169/quizzes/77553 2/3
19/8/2021 Reading Quiz #1: Virtual 202108 Avanzado 11 19:30-21:00

4. Which of the sentences numbered in the article containes hedging

language? 2

5. Why does the author quote Karin Isler in paragraph 6?

[ Select ]

Answer 1:

Problems when studying animal intelligence

Answer 2:

It is not easy to study animals.

Answer 3:

Each study contributes to understand animal intelligence.

Answer 4:

Answer 5:

To support the author's opinion about animal intelligence.

https://icpna.instructure.com/courses/21169/quizzes/77553 3/3