After a hepadnavirus inserts itself into a chromosome of an animal, fragments of the virus are passed on to all of th...

Emil-Kunkin on August 30 at 04:28PM

What story can you tell yourself that uses E to strengthen the argument?

I would ideally attack the argument by noting that if fails to address to possibility that the virus happened to affect the two species independently of each other. The right answer is right because it makes this possibility of two independent instances of the virus entering the genome less likely to be possible.

But looking at E, I just don't know what it does. This doesn't pass the so what test. I really can't do anything with E unless I make a huge number of other assumptions. Whether or not the virus impacts the likelihood of survival, E doesnt get to the flaw in any way.

I also struggle to see how it makes the conclusion more likely. If it does not impact the likelihood of survival, then the addition of the virus should have had no bearing on the evolution of the birds, which neither helps nor hurts the argument.

In general, but especially for strengthen/weaken questions, wrong answers are wrong just because they don't really do anything. I want you to come into answer choices with the presumption that each answer is wrong, and let right answers convince you otherwise, rather than come in with the presumption that they are right and look to eliminate answers that are wrong.