Parasitic wasps lay their eggs directly into the eggs

[JbhB682]

I am stunned. The "smallest host egg" is never mentioned in the CR. How can the conclusion be related to that.

the passage includes information about "any suitable size of host egg"; therefore, the smallest such size is indeed within the scope of the argument.

Can the tutors explain this without using POE?

Thanks

by "this" do you mean why the above concept is ok, or do you mean that you actually want us to explain the answer to the problem?

if you want an explanation of the answer, here you go:
the passage states that "Parasitic wasps lay their eggs directly into the eggs of various host insects in exactly the right numbers for any suitable size of host egg".
therefore, we could observe the parasite's behavior until we saw a host egg for which "exactly the right number" was 1 egg.
since the wasp cannot lay less than 1 egg, this particular egg would then be the smallest possible host egg.
therefore, we should be able to determine the smallest possible host egg, so (a) is justified.

Hi Ron - i dont see what the "Behavior" specifically in answer choice A indicates ..

Per my understanding of the premise

1) Parasites lay their eggs directly into the eggs of other host insects (doesn't matter what the size is, as long as, the size is suitable for the wasp)
2) Parasite has to ensure, the number of eggs he lays is exact otherwise issues ..

What does "egg laying behavior" even mean...

thanks

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

I sympathize with you - this is an odd and confusing problem. We need to understand the passage well, and avoid a bunch of traps too.

The phrase 'egg-laying behavior' depends something on context. The ideas is that if we observed parasitic wasps and watched which eggs they laid their eggs into, we would get some information from seeing the size of the eggs that they chose and the number of wasp eggs that fitted into each of the host's eggs.