PrepTest 120, Section 2, Question 22
Until recently, biologists were unable to explain the(439 more words not shown)
The examples of diphtheria and(18 more words not shown)
- AThe most dangerous(11 more words not shown)
- BThose pathogens with(11 more words not shown)
- CThose pathogens transported(7 more words not shown)
- DThe least dangerous(12 more words not shown)
- EThose pathogens transmitted(5 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Diphtheria and tuberculosis are the exceptions to the usual comparison: a directly transmitted pathogen can still be very dangerous. The question now asks what these examples support about dangerousness. Let's return to what allows them to be exceptions, rather than stop at the fact that they spread directly.
Working the answers
- A
The short life span is the wrong direction. These pathogens can wait outside a host for weeks or months, unlike rhinoviruses that survive only hours. Their endurance, not a short life span, helps them remain dangerous.
- BCorrect
The final sentence explicitly connects their endurance outside the host with being in the ranks of the deadliest pathogens (paragraph 4). They can remain available for transmission after a shorter-lived pathogen would have died.
That last sentence gives us more than the broad exception I first recalled: it connects external survival time to dangerousness. We don't need to invent a ranking or claim that one specific pathogen is the single most dangerous.
- C
Always is contradicted by these very examples. They can be as lethal without relying on vectors.
- D
The examples connect long survival outside a host with great danger. They don't establish which pathogens are least dangerous.
- E
Again, these are directly transmitted pathogens that can be highly dangerous. They defeat the claim that direct transmission always means the least danger.
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