Q23

[skapur777]

I'm assuming most people pick between B and E? I remember guessing and picking E but going back to it I picked B. Is there any way you can help with this one?

[ilona11223344]

Hi!

To weaken, we first have to understand the view of the biologists in line 10. Their statement says something along the lines of - the view that host-parasite relations have the best chance for survival because they can then survive while living with the host. The biologists say that this is not necessarily true because of this new scenario - pathogens can actually survive/reproduce even if they make the host sick by transmitting into a new host - so basically, these death-causing pathogens can achieve evolutionary success.

To weaken: bring in some new information that says that the scenario the biologists are proposing won't/can't work. If (E) is true, then their argument falls apart. If it is true that most (death-causing) pathogens transmitted from incapacitated hosts can't reproduce in their new hosts - then they can't have evolutionary success and the biologists statement no longer makes sense.

Regarding the other answer choices - here's how I saw them:

(A) this would actually strengthen as it would fall right in line with the biologists statement
(B) this is actually a distortion of the 1st sentence of the passage that ends with 'often overwhelm, their hosts' - this is a fact that is not attributed to the biologists and was not part of the biologists argument so it's out of scope
(C) biologists argument is only about pathogens that do incapacitate their hosts - so this is out of scope
(D) this just repeats part of the biologists statement - doesn't weaken

Hope this helps!

[maryadkins]

Great explanation. I think (B) is the most tempting of the wrong answer choices here. But we don't need the pathogens to overwhelm their hosts; the biologists just need them to be transmitted into new hosts where they reproduce and to incapacitate the old hosts.