Happy to help! The stimulus tells us that people who consume a lot of honey tend to have fewer cavities than others have. Yet, honey is high in sugar, and sugar is one of the leading causes of tooth decay.
That's weird. Why aren't people who are eating honey (which is high in sugar) getting as many cavities as others if honey has a lot of sugar?
We need something that helps us explain how people can simultaneously be eating lots of sugar and also mitigating their risk for developing cavities. Our answer choice should provide us with information that achieves this goal.
Answer A tells us that people who eat a lot of honey aren't eating much other sugar. O.K., but they're still eating a lot of honey. And eating a lot of honey means they're eating a lot of sugar. And eating a lot of sugar would mean we'd expect them to develop lots of cavities. This does nothing for resolving the paradox. It's an incorrect choice.
Answer B is incorrect because we don't care if the sugar is dissolved or not. They're still eating a lot of sugar, and sugar should be giving them lots of cavities. This doesn't help explain the paradox.
Answer C is incorrect because it's a vague statement that is contingent upon some assumptions if it were to resolve the paradox. If people who ate lots of honey also had the best dental hygiene of all humans, then maybe this answer would help explain the paradox. But that 'if' is a big hypothetical and an assumption that WE are making, so this can't be the answer. We can get rid of this choice.
Answer D is incorrect because the paradox is describing cavities and tooth decay, not health problems in general. This does nothing to resolve the paradox.
Answer E says that honey contains bacteria that inhibit the growth of the bacteria that cause tooth decay. Ah, that makes sense. So even if they're eating lots of honey (and lots of sugar) they're also consuming a ton of bacteria that helps prevent tooth decay. This resolves the paradox for us, and it's the correct choice.
Does this help? Let us know if you have any more questions!
