PrepTest 147, Section 1, Question 12
Ampicillin and other modern antibiotics kill a much(71 more words not shown)
The conclusion of the argument(13 more words not shown)
- Adrug-resistant bacteria flourish(12 more words not shown)
- Bolder antibiotics like(8 more words not shown)
- Ca shortage of(9 more words not shown)
- Dtreatment of diseases(15 more words not shown)
- Emost bacteria that(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Killing a wider variety of bacteria isn't automatically better in every case. Some bacteria can be useful, so a drug that wipes out more kinds may have consequences beyond killing the bacteria we wanted to target.
I'm also not ready to assume a higher profit margin will make the older drugs disappear. How much higher is it? If doctors still want penicillin, companies might still have a reason to sell it. There might also be another suitable older antibiotic. Those are questions about whether the predicted shortage and forced switch will happen.
What we’re looking for
But the final claim goes further: greater use of the newer drugs will likely lead to diseases caused by drug-resistant bacteria. That's the connection we need to strengthen when completing the passage. What about using these broader antibiotics would let resistant bacteria become a bigger problem?
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The newer drugs kill a wider variety of bacteria, removing more of the bacteria that compete with resistant ones. If resistant bacteria flourish when that competition is gone, broader antibiotic use can give them room to spread. This explains the jump from using a more powerful drug to facing more disease from resistant bacteria. The drug doesn't have to create resistance from scratch; it can make conditions better for bacteria that already resist treatment.
- B
How long penicillin has been used doesn't explain why replacing it with broader antibiotics would lead to an outbreak of resistant bacteria. The historical fact might be relevant to some other question, but we need a link between the proposed switch and the predicted result.
- C
This could actually push against the earlier economic prediction. If a shortage raises penicillin's profit margin, manufacturing it might become more attractive again. That gives us a possible reason the shortage wouldn't persist, rather than a reason broader antibiotic use would cause resistant bacteria to flourish.
- D
More expensive treatment is a possible cost of the switch, but the conclusion concerns disease caused by resistant bacteria. We aren't given a reason that a higher treatment bill would make those bacteria more successful. This adds a different concern without supporting the particular result the author predicts.
- E
This says the newer drugs can kill most bacteria that resist penicillin. That doesn't explain an increase in disease from resistant bacteria; it describes bacteria the newer drugs can defeat. Nor does it mean the newer drugs defeat every kind of resistant bacterium. We would still need to know what happens to bacteria that resist the newer treatments, which is where A's competition explanation helps.
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