Read the following extract from Robert Frost's poem, 'A Considerable Speck' and answer the questions that follow: This was no dust speck by my breathing blown, But unmistakably a living mite With inclinations it could call its own.
What made him realise that he was dealing with ‘an intelligence’?
Topic: Recognising intelligence
Answer
It was the mite’s behaviour. It did not move at random: it ran, stopped, and set off again with evident purpose. It came to the wet ink, recoiled in alarm and would not cross it. It then ran along the edge, hesitated, seemed to consider, and finally chose another route. It cowered and faltered as though afraid, and appeared to be aware of the poet watching it. Such hesitation, fear and deliberate choice — "with inclinations it could call its own" — are the marks of mind, not mere mechanical instinct.
List the specific behaviours; general statements ("it moved cleverly") do not earn marks. The reasoning to make explicit is that Frost distinguishes purposeful, hesitant, self-directed movement from blind instinct — the mite appears to weigh options and to know it is being observed.