Passage: Like a brain, an ant colony operates without central control.

Each is a set of
interacting individuals, either neurons or ants, using simple chemical interactions that in
the aggregate generate their behaviour. People use their brains to remember. Can ant
colonies do that? This question leads to another question: what is memory? For people,
memory is the capacity to recall something that happened in the past. We also ask
computers to reproduce past actions – the blending of the idea of the computer as brain
and brain as computer has led us to take ‘memory’ to mean something like the information
stored on a hard drive. We know that our memory relies on changes in how much a set of
linked neurons stimulate each other; that it is reinforced somehow during sleep; and that
recent and long-term memory involve different circuits of connected neurons.
Any living being can exhibit the simplest form of memory, a change due to past events.
Look at a tree that has lost a branch. It remembers by how it grows around the wound,
leaving traces in the pattern of the bark and the shape of the tree. You might be able to
describe the last time you had the flu, or you might not. Either way, in some sense your
body ‘remembers’, because some of your cells now have different antibodies, molecular
receptors, which fit that particular virus.
Past events can alter the behaviour of both individual ants and ant colonies. Individual
carpenter ants offered a sugar treat remembered its location for a few minutes; they were
likely to return to where the food had been.
An ant of Sahara Desert ant species can remember how far it walked, or how many steps it
took, since the last time it was at the nest.
A red wood ant colony remembers its trail system leading to the same trees, year after
year, although no single ant does. In the forests of Europe, they forage in high trees to
feed on the excretions of aphids that in turn feed on the tree. Their nests are enormous
mounds of pine needles situated in the same place for decades, occupied by many
generations of colonies. Each ant tends to take the same trail day after day to the same
tree. During the long winter, the ants huddle together under the snow. When the ants
emerge in the spring, an older ant goes out with a young one along the older ant’s habitual
trail. The older ant dies and the younger ant adopts that trail as its own, thus leading the
colony to remember, or reproduce, the previous year’s trails.
1. Which of the following cannot be inferred
about red wood ants?
(a) Red wood ants are known to have huge nests
that occupy the same place for decades on
end.
(b) In winter red wood ants live under the snow
only to emerge in spring.
(c) In red wood ants the younger ants establish
their own trails by taking older ants with
them.
(d) Red wood ants hunt down high trees for the
droppings of other insects.
2. Which of the following observations about the ant
colony, if true, would provide further support to the
author’s thesis?
(a) When the movement of the ant colony was
disturbed, the ants switched tasks and positions and
the patterns of ant colony could not shift back to the
undisturbed state.
(b) A foraging ant who has found some food does not
recruit others because there are not likely to be
other foods nearby.
(c) The ant colony’s shape changes every day as
individual ants trace different foraging paths, switch
talks and positions in the colony, but the colony
returns the original shape.
(d) Foraging ants individually search for scattered
foods, without leaving any chemical trail and return
to the nest with the food they may have found.
3. Which of the following is not true?
(a) Some ant colonies have been known to have
older ants that train the younger ones to
follow their trails.
(b) In all species of ants, individual ants exhibit
the exact same memory as that of ant
colonies.
(c) It has been studied that like all other living
beings, past events can lead to changes in the
behaviour of ants.
(d) Certain species of ants can remember the
location of food, and trace their way back to
it.
4. “Either way, in some sense your body
‘remembers’, because some of your cells now
have different antibodies, molecular
receptors, which fit that particular virus,”
(Paragraph 2). The sentence serves which of
the following purposes?
(a) To build an argument through an example or
reference.
(b) To counter an argument presented earlier in
the passage.
(c) To refute the conventional approach to what
‘memory’ is.
(d) To show how some memory exists not in the
brain but only in the body.
5. What is the central argument that the author is
making?
(a) Different species of ants have different codes
and means of functioning.
(b) Ant colonies possess memory, much like
individual ants and most other living species.
(c) Red wood ants have shown signs of significant
retention and long term memory vis-à-vis the
Sahara Desert ant.
(d) Ants share their memories in the form of linked
traces stored in their neurons.
1. Answer: C
Sol. The passage mentions something quite contrary to the option. According to the passage it is the older ants that actually take the younger
ones along the trails that are passed on from generation to generation of ant colonies - “When the ants emerge in the spring, an older ant
goes out with a young one along the older ant’s habitual trail. The older ant dies and the younger ant adopts that trail as its own, thus leading
the colony to remember, or reproduce, the previous year’s trails.” Option A is a trait of red wood ants, paragraph 4, sentence 3- “Their nests
are enormous mounds of pine needles situated in the same place for decades, occupied by many generations of colonies.” Option B is a trait
of the red wood ants, which can be observed from sentence 5 & 6 of paragraph 4; Option D is also true since the passage mentions red wood
ants feeding on the “excretions of aphids” Paragraph 4, sentence 2.
2. Answer: C
Sol. The author’s thesis needs to be clearly understood before you can attempt this question. The thesis is the answer to question. “Ant colonies
possess memory, much like individual ants and most other living species.” We need to look for an option that reinforces the idea that ants
have individual memories and the colony has a collective memory. Option C reinforces both – the individual ants tracing different routes and
returning to different positions reinforces individual memory. Yet the colony returning to the original shape reinforces collective memory.
Option A negates both individual and collective memory. Options B and D are related to individual memory alone.
3. Answer: B
Sol. Although the author mentions in paragraph 3 that “Past events can alter the behaviour of both individual ants and ant colonies”, he makes no
mention of them having the exact same memory. This can be further confirmed by the reference the author makes in paragraph 1, describing
memory in ants and ant colonies, “Like a brain, an ant colony operates without central control. Each is a set of interacting individuals, either
neurons or ants, using simple chemical interactions that in the aggregate generate their behaviour.” Thus, while ant colonies have collective
memory, that generates their behaviour, they are also ‘interacting individuals’. Option A is incorrect because it is true based on the passage -
in paragraph 4, the author cites the case of the red wood ants, where “an older ant goes out with a young one along the older ant’s habitual
trail. The older ant dies and the younger ant adopts the trail as its own, thus leading the colony to remember, or reproduce, the previous
year’s trails.” Option C is incorrect because it is true based on the passage 3 -“Past events can alter the behaviour of both individual ants and
ant colonies.” Option D is also true based on the example of carpenter ants used in paragraph 3, sentence 2 - “Individual carpenter ants
offered a sugar treat remembered its location for a few minutes; they were likely to return to where the food had been.”
4. Answer: A
Sol. It is best to understand why the author has used this sentence by studying the context - This sentence appears in paragraph 2 of the passage,
where the author is explaining what memory is in its simplest form. First, the paragraph cites the examples of trees and then the example of
the human body, in supporting the argument that, “Any living being can exhibit the simplest form of memory, a change due to past events.”
(paragraph 2, sentence 1). Option B and C are not correct options because the author is neither contradicting his argument, nor is he refuting
what memory is conventionally described as. If anything, he is confirming that this is an example of the simplest form of memory. Option D is
not the correct choice , because the author explains how memory involves the brain and neurons, in paragraph 1 - “ …and brain as computer
has led us to take ‘memory’ to mean something like the information stored on a hard drive. We know that our memory relies on changes in
how much a set of linked neurons stimulate each other; that it is reinforced somehow during sleep; and that recent and long-term memory
involve different circuits of connected neurons.” He then goes on to describe how these changes lead to changes in behaviour, and does not
distinguish between memory in the body v/s memory in the brain.
5. Answer : B
Sol. The passage predominantly describes the role of memory in ant colonies and individual ants, citing examples of redwood ant colonies,
Sahara Desert ants and carpenter ants. The author constructs this argument by building a larger argument around what memory is, and how
it shapes behaviour in trees, humans and ants. Option A is an incorrect option because although the passage makes reference to the
retention and retrieval of memory among ant colonies and individual ants, it doesn’t make any reference to codes and means of functioning.
Option C can be eliminated because the passage does not compare the red wood ants with the Sahara Desert Ant - In Paragraph 3 the author
describes the memory of the Sahara desert ant, and in paragraph 4, he describes the red wood ant, without any comparison between the
two. Option D is incorrect because the only reference the passage makes to the memories of ants is at the opening of the passage, “Like a
brain, an ant colony operates without central control. Each is a set of interacting individuals, either neurons or ants, using simple chemical
interactions that in the aggregate generate their behaviour.” There is no evidence in the passage of linked traces stored in the neurons.