A distemper virus has caused two-thirds of the seal population in the North Sea to die since May 1988. The explanatio...
Matthew-RohrbackOctober 15, 2021
Isn't Answer A an Alternate Cause?
Does answer A not provide an alternate cause for the seal deaths (ie., that seal food supplies have decreased steeply during the time since 1988) and thus do the opposite of strengthen the pollution explanation?
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Exactly, what Im thinking. A looks like an alternative cause which may be an indicator to weaken the argument. Alternative cause vs. providing more examples is the challenging part in this question.
Jay-EtterJanuary 14, 2022
Hi Matthew, here we are looking for an answer option that supports the idea that the seal deaths were caused by pollution in the North Sea rather than by the normal latent virus. Option A does this by providing a new piece of information that says other species have also been experiencing population decreases, indicating there is probably something in common between these population decreases and those of the seals. In this case, we would read that shared factor as being the pollution (which makes sense, because shellfish, seabirds, and seals would all be affected by severe pollution). Options B, C, and E all weaken the explanation in the argument by making it less likely that it was pollution contributing to the deaths, and option D has no effect because the different kinds of seal living in the North Sea area is irrelevant to the argument.
