Q17

[andyevans000]

Question 17, and the part it refers to in the text (line 6) literally makes absolutely no sense to me. What am I missing here?

[giladedelman]

The passage tells us that there are two basic explanations for homing pigeons' ability to find their way back, "aside from reading the minds of the experimenters." In other words, there are two basic possibilities if we assume that the pigeons aren't just reading the minds of the people who take them away from their lofts (which even on the LSAT is a pretty solid assumption!).

Question 17 asks us to choose the experiment that would test whether pigeons actually do read the minds of the people taking them from their homes for these experiments.

(A) is correct because if the experimenters don't know the location of the pigeons' homes, then reading their minds will be useless for the pigeons; they must use a different method to get back.

(B) is incorrect because "affection" is way out of scope.

(C) is incorrect because whether they speak to each other has nothing to do with the pigeons reading their minds.

(D) makes an irrelevant comparison between teams and individuals.

(E) might make it harder for the pigeons to function, or something, but it wouldn't help us figure out whether they are reading people's minds.

Does that clear this one up for you?