PrepTest 103, Section 4, Question 18
Between June 1987 and May 1988, the bodies(454 more words not shown)
It can be inferred from(18 more words not shown)
- AIt may have(16 more words not shown)
- BIt forms more(14 more words not shown)
- CIt damages liver(17 more words not shown)
- DIt is unlikely(11 more words not shown)
- EIt is unlikely(18 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Brevetoxin may have contributed, but the writer doubts it started the disaster. The June deaths began before the October bloom. Keep that timing objection separate from the possibility that brevetoxin made things worse later; the writer leaves room for the latter.
Working the answers
- A
We aren't given this division between skin lesions and infection. The writer says brevetoxin's specific effects on dolphins are unknown, which doesn't establish either the proposed skin effect or its inability to contribute to infection.
- B
Nothing says synthetic pollutants make brevetoxin form more easily. Both substances might affect dolphins without pollutants helping produce the toxin.
- C
Those known effects on the liver and immune system belong to PCB poisoning. Brevetoxin's specific effects are described as unknown. The cautious ending about the trigger doesn't fix that incorrect attribution.
- D
The final sentence allows brevetoxin to have been “a contributing factor.” Doubting that it started the deaths doesn't support dismissing a contributing role as unlikely.
- ECorrect
The deaths began in June, months before and farther north than the October algal bloom (paragraph 4). The alga is also ordinarily absent from the Atlantic coast. That supports the writer's timing objection: the proposed brevetoxin exposure wasn't there when the disaster began. An exposure that arrives after the deaths have started is unlikely to explain their beginning.
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