Logical reasoning PrepTest 135 · Section 4 · Question 9

Question prompt

Birds and mammals can Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Facts

Valid or Flawed

NA

Question Type

Must Be True Questions

Answer Anticipation

There’s a lot of information about the transmission of the disease, and two statements in particular stand out for their strength. First, birds and mammals can only get the disease from mosquitoes, so it can’t go from bird to person or person to person. Second, mosquitoes can never get it from humans. So mosquitoes are spreading the disease, but humans aren’t. Those strong statements will likely lead to the correct answer.

Answer choices

  1. A
    West Nile virus will Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    While humans will never be the primary means of spreading the disease, that doesn’t mean that the disease won’t ever become common in humans.
  2. B
    West Nile virus is Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    While mosquitoes are the means of transmission, the stimulus never connects mosquito density to infection rates. Maybe the density of birds/mammals is more important than mosquito density.
  3. C
    Some people who become Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    The symptoms of the virus, and whether people show them, are never mentioned in the stimulus and are thus out of scope.
  4. D
    West Nile virus infects Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    While the virus was detected in northern Africa before North America, that doesn’t guarantee there are more cases there. Since the stimulus doesn’t discuss rates of infection, this answer is out of scope.
  5. E
    West Nile virus was Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem
    Birds/mammals (including humans) can “only” get infected from a mosquito bite. Mosquitoes can “never” get infected from humans. Since a human couldn’t give it to another human or a mosquito, a human couldn’t have carried the virus to North America, so this answer is correct.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 9%
  2. B 8%
  3. C 2%
  4. D 2%
  5. E Credited 79%

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Discussion

  • Answer choice B 1 reply

    Started by shafieiava

  • Why not a? 1 reply

    Started by nivensdc

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