The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Gradually, life for the island's birds is improving. Antarctic prions and white-headed petrels, which also nest in burrows, had managed to cling on in some sites while pests were on the island. Their numbers are now increasing. "It's fantastic and so exciting," Shaw says. As birds return to breed, they also poo. This adds nutrients to the soil, which in turn helps the plants to grow back stronger. Tall plants then help burrowing birds hide from predatory skuas. "It's this wonderful feedback loop,β Shaw says. Today, the "pretty paddock" that Houghton first experienced has been transformed. "The tussock is over your head, and you're dodging all these penguin tunnels," she says. The orchids and tiny herb that had been protected by fencing have started turning up all over the place.
The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.
Gradually, life for the island's birds is improving. Antarctic prions and white-headed petrels, which also nest in burrows, had managed to cling on in some sites while pests were on the island. Their numbers are now increasing. "It's fantastic and so exciting," Shaw says. As birds return to breed, they also poo. This adds nutrients to the soil, which in turn helps the plants to grow back stronger. Tall plants then help burrowing birds hide from predatory skuas. "It's this wonderful feedback loop,β Shaw says. Today, the "pretty paddock" that Houghton first experienced has been transformed. "The tussock is over your head, and you're dodging all these penguin tunnels," she says. The orchids and tiny herb that had been protected by fencing have started turning up all over the place.
Solution
We need to find the main idea first. The passage shows how removing pests helped birds and plants come back to life on an island.
From passage: "Gradually, life for the island's birds is improving. Antarctic prions and white-headed petrels... had managed to cling on in some sites while pests were on the island. Their numbers are now increasing."
The key idea -> pests are gone -> birds are doing better -> they poo -> soil gets nutrients -> plants grow -> birds have better hiding spots -> everything gets better together.
This is what we call a feedback loop - one good thing leads to another good thing, and it keeps going in circles.
Let's check each option to see which one gets this right:
π’ Option 1 -> correct -> says "absence of pests" (the cause) + "revival of birds and plants" (the effect). This catches both the reason why things got better AND what got better.
π Option 2 -> context-shift -> talks about "environmental protection" but misses the specific point about pest removal. The passage isn't about general protection - it's specifically about what happened after pests were gone.
π΄ Option 3 -> factual-error -> says "despite the presence of pests" which is completely backwards! The whole point is that things got better BECAUSE the pests are gone, not despite them being there.
π Option 4 -> too-narrow -> only talks about protection but misses the bigger picture of how the whole ecosystem bounced back after pest removal. It's like only talking about one piece of a puzzle.
The confusion here might be between Options 1 and 2. But Option 2 uses vague words like "environmental protection" while Option 1 specifically mentions "absence of pests" which is exactly what the passage is about.