mallya12 wrote:
Can someone please explain me option C.
this is what I understood after reading option C: meat quality in the rural area is better than the urban area. Therefore urban people who ate infected meat have higher resistant bacteria than rural people. Isn't this supporting the conclusion?
Answer choice (C) is a trap answer that may seem to say something that affects the argument, but says nothing that affects the argument.
(C) The incidence of resistant bacteria in people has tended to be much higher in urban areas than in rural areas where meat is of comparable quality.The statement "meat is of comparable quality" means that the quality of the meat in the two types of areas is similar.
So, what (C) is saying is that in areas of two types where meat quality is similar, the incidence of resistant bacteria is higher in areas of one of the types than in areas of the other type.
By making this comparison between the incidences of resistance bacteria in the areas of two types, (C) creates the illusion that it is saying something that can be used to strengthen the argument, and gives a test-taker an opportunity to concoct a convoluted story explaining why (C) adds support to the conclusion.
However, (C) does not add support to the conclusion, as it says nothing that indicates that consumption of meat is the reason for the presence of antibiotic resistant bacteria.
In fact, if anything, (C) provides a reason to question the explanation, because, even though people in the areas of the two different types consume similar meat, the incidence of antibiotic resistant bacteria is higher in areas of one type than it is in areas of the other type. So, since (C) indicates that, without a difference in meat, there is a difference in incidence of antibiotic resistant bacteria, what (C) says tends to indicate that something other than meat consumption is responsible for the presence of the antibiotic resistant bacteria.