enigma123 wrote:
Pasteurization of milk is a process by which milk is heated to a certain temperature and then rapidly cooled, killing pathogens and increasing the shelf life of milk. Recently pasteurization has come under fire because it has been found that during pasteurization many helpful digestive enzymes are destroyed, and many dangerous pathogens are not, including the MAP bacterial strain, which is linked to Crohn’s disease. Because of this, some people have started drinking ‘raw milk’--milk that isn’t pasteurized or otherwise processed. Proponents of pasteurization point out that that pasteurization is still necessary to reduce bacterial contamination, and that heating milk at home also kills beneficial digestive enzymes.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the raw milk drinkers’ argument?
a)Most pathogenic contamination of milk happens during processing and is not associated with the milk itself.
b)More people reported bacterial illness after drinking pasteurized milk this year than did last year.
c)The digestive enzymes in raw milk have been found to stimulate the growth of biologically beneficial bacteria in the small intestine.
d)Fewer people reported bacterial illness after drinking raw milk this year than in previous years.
e)Because of advances in technology, in five years raw milk will be cheaper to produce than pasteurized milk.
As per stimulus, some people have started drinking ‘raw milk’--milk that isn’t pasteurized or otherwise processed because pasteurization kill helpful enzymes and leave dangerous pathogen untouched. On the other hand people who support pasteurization claim that heating milk also kills beneficial enzymes. So in order to strengthen this question, we have to weaken the pasteurization's proponent claim.
and this is what option A exactly does.
Most pathogenic contamination of milk happens during processing and is not associated with the milk itself Thus pathogen present in pasteurized milk will not be present in raw milk.
B and D use a specific date/time which could not be used to generalize their claim on a whole.
C is out of scope. our scope here is to compare pasteurization vs raw milk. Other benefits of raw milk are out of scope
E is again out of scope on similar lines as D.