争议题，求解~~

cassie柚子蜜

Lyme disease is caused by a bacterium transmitted to humans by deer ticks . Generally deer ticks pick up the bacterium while in the larval stage from feeding on infected white-footed mice. However, certain other species on which the larvae feed do not harbor the bacterium. Therefore, if the population of these other species were increased, the number of ticks acquiring the bacterium and hence the number of people contracting Lyme disease would likely decline.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?

A.    Ticks do not suffer any adverse consequences from carrying the bacterium that causes Lyme disease in humans.
B.    There are no known cases of a human’s contracting Lyme disease through contact with white-footed mice.
C.    A deer tick feeds only once while in the larval stage.
D.    A single host animal can be the source of bacterium for many tick larvae.
E.    None of the other species on which deer tick larvae feed harbor other bacteria that ticks transmit to humans

nrnr

I feel that the answer is C, because it eliminates the possibility that deer tick can pick up the bacterium during other stages of life.

cassie柚子蜜

but B also eliminate the possibility that people get the disease, dont you think?
there are 2 answers
I dont know which one is right

yychole

应该是C
我觉得B不对的原因是
1-human和white-footed mice是没有contact.但是这个细菌是通过white-footed mice 到deer ticks，再到human的。
2-B选项和原文中的因果逻辑（X increase 导致了 Y decrease关系无关)

nrnr

Answer B has no influence over the conclusion of this argument. The argument is about the number of people who contract lyme disease could decline if the population of the species (other than white mice) that deer ticks feed on could increase. Thinking from math point of view, now you have one set C made up of two mutually exclusive sets, Set A belongs to the people contracting disease through deer ticks and Set B belongs to those contracting disease through other means such as white mice. The stimuli has set the boundary to be inside Set A, so what happened in Set B will not affect the results from Set A in this case.

cassie柚子蜜

oh I see .yes that exlpains
谢谢大牛~！！