M-STEP Practice Test 15
10 free M-STEP practice questions in the real exam format, covering the official content areas, with an explanation for every answer.
Question 1 of 10
ListeningOn the test you hear this presentation through headphones. Here, read the transcript, then answer the questions.
Audio transcript: Clues in an Owl Pellet
Take a look at this small, gray lump. It might look like something you'd want to avoid, but to a scientist, it's a treasure. It's an owl pellet.
Owls usually swallow small prey, like mice and voles, whole. Their stomachs digest the meat, but they can't digest bones, fur, or teeth. So several hours after a meal, the owl coughs up those leftovers as a tight, neat pellet.
When we carefully pull a pellet apart, we can count the skulls inside and identify what the owl ate. One barn owl pellet might hold the bones of two or three animals. By studying many pellets from the same roost, scientists can learn which small animals live in an area and how their numbers change from year to year. That's information that would be very hard to collect by trapping the animals themselves.
So the next time you find one of these under a tree, don't just walk past it. You might be holding a record of what lives in your own neighborhood.
Which two conclusions are supported by the presentation? Select two choices.