A distemper virus has caused two-thirds of the seal population in the North Sea to die since May 1988. The explanatio...
ritagentileJuly 11, 2020
Correlation??
i was between A and E for this question. I understand how A could make the argument more believable , but I ultimately eliminated A because it seemed like correlation vs causation. An alarm went off in my head that said they're probably trying to trick you. So i'm wondering generally, why can something like this that technically could be a coincidence, strengthen the argument?
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This question asks you to pick the answer choice which "most strongly supports the explanation given." That means, you are looking to pick an answer choice which supports the idea that the reason a latent virus prevailed so quickly was because the seals immune systems had been weakened by pollution.
Answer (A) supports this explanation by providing evidence that other animals have also suffered steep population drops in the last 10 years. This could support the argument in two ways. First, it could tell us that this virus has been around a long time and was harming other animals. This would support the idea that the recent harm to the seal population is something new and that some change must have occurred to make it happen (aka the pollution). Second, it could tell us that other animals in the area may also have been affected by the pollution and that pollution does weaken immune systems. While both of these are conjecture and are not directly stated in the answer choice or the passage, the answer choice provides support for them, which in turn provides support for the argument.
This is one of those tricky questions where the fact that the question asks which one MOST strongly supports is important. You are not necessarily going to be given an answer choice which clearly supports the argument, rather you need to pick the best of the bunch.
Answer (E) is incorrect because it does not support the conclusion that the pollution was the reason the seals died. Instead, this answer choice tells us that it was actually the disease that affected the seals because it was new to the population. That is a different conclusion than the one we are looking to support.
Anthony-ResendesSeptember 15, 2020
Annie,
Your explanation makes sense. Here, both answer choices were horrible in my opinion but there are unfortunately answer choices that will both be bad but we have to choose the one that is not as bad? Yes, answer choice E was basically saying it was the virus that caused the sudden death rate, however, A said that a bunch of different animals all of a sudden died off....doesn't tell us really anything as they could have died from an oil spill that adversely affected the food supply chain. A is strengthening the conclusion whereas E is weakening the conclusion. Thank you!
February 18, 2021
I am sorry but A appeared to be out of scope? I must be doing something wrong because i keep missing these kinds of questions.
