Question

alejandro wants to find out whether mealworms prefer apples or pears. he places an apple slice at one end of a cardboard box and a pear slice at the other end. he then places 20 mealworms in the center of the box, about 15 centimeters (cm) from each piece of fruit. after several hours, he counts the mealworms on or under the apple, the mealworms on or under the pear, and the mealworms not touching either the apple or the pear. alejandro repeated his experiment four times. the data are recorded in the table shown below.

mealworm experiments

mealworms prefer apples.

mealworms prefer pears.

mealworms do not go near apples or pears.

mealworms do not prefer apples or pears.

Explanation:

Looking at the data in the table for each experiment, in Experiment 1, 14 mealworms are on or under the apple and 4 on or under the pear. In Experiment 2, 12 on or under the apple and 5 on or under the pear. In Experiment 3, 15 on or under the apple and 4 on or under the pear. In Experiment 4, 10 on or under the apple and 5 on or under the pear. In each experiment (except maybe Experiment 4 where the difference is smaller), more mealworms are on or under the apple than the pear.

Answer:

Mealworms prefer apples.