Lobsters and other crustaceans eaten by humans are more likely to contract gill diseases when sewage contaminates the...

shunhe on September 13, 2020

Hi @yckim2180,

Thanks for the question! So we’re told in this stimulus that lobsters and other crustaceans that humans eat are more likely to get gill disease when there’s sewage in their water. There’s this proposal to move local sewage somewhere else. This would decrease sewage in the harbor where lobsters are caught, but the author thinks this proposal is pointless since the lobsters don't live long enough to be harmed by the diseases anyway.

So now we’re asked for something that most seriously weakens the argument. First, find the conclusion. What’s the conclusion? That the proposal is pointless. So now we need to weaken it, basically by saying that the proposal does have a point. So now let’s take a look at (E), which tells us that lobsters with gill diseases will make humans sick. Well, that gives us a reason to have this proposal, right? And that directly weakens the argument, making (E) correct.

(D), on the other hand, tells us that gill diseases can’t be detected by examining the surface of the lobster. This doesn’t seem super relevant. I guess you could say that if you can’t see the gill diseases and you eat the lobster and it’s bad, then that’d be bad. But (D) doesn’t tell us that eating gill disease lobsters is actually bad for humans, (E) says that explicitly and is thus a better answer than (D).

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.