PT 58, S3, Q9 - Two months ago, a major shipment of pythons

[r1r200]

Can someone please explain #9. pythons question on LR section that had 25 questions?

thank you!

[dan]

Thanks for the question.

For all inference questions, we want to choose an answer we can pretty much prove.

(A) This must be true. We know that there are at least a few pythons hatched in North America that have the disease. We also know that the disease is hard to detect (so some of these pythons "may appear fine" initially). Lastly, we know that all pythons with the disease will die within six months of contracting the disease (including the North American-hatched pythons).

(B) It's true that a greater proportion of African-hatched pythons have the disease, but does this mean that African-hatched pythons are more susceptible to the disease than North American-hatched pythons? Not necessarily. It's possible that the two types of pythons are equally susceptible to contracting the disease, but that some environmental condition in Africa gives the African-hatched pythons more exposure to the cause of the disease.

(C) The passage says that all pythons die within six months of contracting the disease, NOT within six months of birth (some pythons may contract the disease well after hatching). So, it's possible that a python could contract the disease at age 4 months and live to the age of 10 months.

(D) We don't know why the pythons are inexpensive. If we had to take a guess, we'd probably say it's because there is now a huge supply of them in stores. Regardless, we don't have any proof of this, and so we can't justify choosing this answer.

(E) We don't have any information about pythons hatched outside North America or Africa.

dan

[mrudula_2005]

(B) It's true that a greater proportion of African-hatched pythons have the disease, but does this mean that African-hatched pythons are more susceptible to the disease than North American-hatched pythons? Not necessarily. It's possible that the two types of pythons are equally susceptible to contracting the disease, but that some environmental condition in Africa gives the African-hatched pythons more exposure to the cause of the disease.

in reference to what I bolded above - but doesn't that by definition make the pythons in Africa MORE susceptible? Whatever the cause is, the pythons in Africa are being exposed to the disease-causing factors to a greater extent than in North America and so they have to be, by definition, more susceptible, right? Maybe I'm not even understanding the proper definition of susceptible here...i just found a definition that roughly says it means "yielding readily to" - just the fact that there is a greater proportion of diseased pythons in Africa, to me means that whatever the reason - environmental or inborn - the pythons in Africa, by definition and in accord with the statistics, yields more readily to the disease than the North American ones.

help me see my error in reasoning please! Thanks!

[noah]

You post such great questions! If you haven't already, you should take a shot at answering some questions - just look through "unanswered posts."

Anyway, for this one, the issue is indeed the definition of "susceptible." If one snake is more susceptible to the disease than another, and they are both in the same location, with the same exposure, it's more likely that the one that is more susceptible will catch the disease. Basically, it's referring to how strong is one's defense against a phenomenon. Susceptibility is about our internal reaction to something, not how often we're exposed.

Tell me if that doesn't clear it up.

- Noah