amkarthick wrote:
In the question, it is just mentioned that infestation is danger when "certain" standards are maintained not "minimal". In (E), it just refers to people who do not maintain minimal standards. So I thought (E) is irrelevant and went for (A). Can someone help me clarify why (E) is preferred over (A)
Let's eliminate (A) first.
Here's (A).
(A) Many insect infestations have certain characteristics that cannot be detected by the investigation of a householder.This choice is designed to fool us into thinking it says something that it doesn't say. If we read this choice without being careful enough, it can appear to say that the characteristics of many insect infestations are such that the infestations cannot be detected. However, that's not what (A) says. What (A) says is that many infestations have CERTAIN characteristics that cannot be detected.
So, (A) is not saying that the infestations cannot be detected. It's saying only that SOME characteristics cannot be detected. For instance, maybe insects lay eggs in the walls of a house, and a householder cannot detect those eggs. OK, great. Still, the householder may be able to detect the infestation by finding other manifestations of it.
So, (A) doesn't really change anything.
OK, now for (E).
(E) People who do not maintain minimal standards of cleanliness are unlikely to inspect their homes for the signs of early insect infestation.(E) is a good reason to doubt that the plan will work. If the people who don't maintain minimal standards of cleanliness are also those who would not bother to inspect their homes, then sending out the newsletter may not change much, since the people most likely to have insect manifestations won't perform the inspections.
While it's true that the passage mentions "certain standards" rather than "minimal standards," to get this question correct, we have to see that the author's idea is that "minimal standards" and the "certain standards" mentioned in the passage are either the same standards or at least have some overlap. After all, a person who would not maintain "minimal standards" likely will not maintain whatever standards "certain standards" are.
When answering CR questions, in some cases we have to consider what the author likely believed, and also, we have to be careful not to overrely on considering whether words in the passage match words in the choices.
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