The right answer is E.Premise: Research shows that exercise has a beneficial effect on health. After much testing with many different types of persons, it has been shown that, in most cases, exercise definitely helps to prevent illnesses caused by viruses.
Premise: The common cold is caused by a virus.
From the premises above, a logical conclusion that can be drawn is that
the common cold may be prevented by exercise. The modifier
may is very important because from the first premise, it is stated that: it has been shown,
in most cases (not in all cases), that exercise definitely helps to prevent illnesses caused by viruses. From the answer choices, it can be seen that option E is the right answer as it is a restatement of the conclusion drawn above.
(A) exercise alone
will not prevent the common cold
Wrong. From the premises to the above argument, the conclusion is that the common cold may be prevented by exercise. If
will not prevent were changed to
may not prevent the common cold, then this option will also be a conclusion that can be drawn.
(B)
exercise is no more effective than antibiotics in preventing the common coldThis is out of scope. Nothing is stated about the effectiveness of antibiotics in the treatment of common cold.
(C)
exercise is probably not effective in preventing colds caused by bacteriaWrong inference. We are only made aware of the fact that the common cold is caused by a virus and that exercises help in most cases to prevent common cold. So a conclusion that links exercise to bacteria is out of scope.
(D) exercise helps the body
to destroy invading virusesThere is no link between exercise and the destruction of invading viruses or any other virus for that matter. We are only informed about the link between exercise and illnesses caused by viruses. Whether exercises help the body to destroy invading viruses or not we cannot determine.
(E) exercise may help to prevent the common cold
This is correct per the reasoning above.