Inference from a Statement
From "The Inner Garden"
The bacterial communities that live in and on the human body — collectively called the microbiome — outnumber human cells roughly one-to-one. Most of these bacteria reside in the large intestine, where they help digest plant fibers we cannot break down on our own and produce small molecules that influence everything from immune function to mood.
For decades, biologists treated the microbiome as a passive byproduct of diet and environment. More recent research has reframed it as an active participant in health, capable of shifting in composition over hours in response to a single meal and over years in response to chronic medication or stress. The composition is also surprisingly individual: two people in the same household, eating largely the same foods, can carry microbiomes as different from each other as the microbiomes of two unrelated mammals.
The implications for medicine are substantial but easy to overstate. We can now identify, with reasonable confidence, microbial signatures associated with specific diseases. We cannot yet reliably manipulate those signatures to treat the diseases. Probiotic supplements, despite their popularity, have produced inconsistent results in controlled trials. The garden, it turns out, is easier to describe than to tend.
Question
Answer choices
- They have been shown to reliably treat specific diseases.
- They are more effective than dietary changes.
- They have produced inconsistent results in controlled studies.
- They are most useful in the absence of medication.
C Correct answer: C) They have produced inconsistent results in controlled studies.
The third paragraph states that probiotic supplements "have produced inconsistent results in controlled trials." The other options either contradict the passage or extend beyond what it says.
On the ACT, reading questions reward returning to the passage and verifying. The wrong answers are written to sound plausible from memory, but they distort one specific phrase from the passage. Re-reading the relevant lines is what catches the distortion.
Predicting an answer in your own words before looking at the choices, then matching the prediction to the closest option, is the single most reliable technique on ACT Reading. Choosing from the choices first lets the test's wrong-answer writers anchor your judgment.
The underlying rule
On "according to the passage" questions, the answer must be directly supported by a specific sentence in the passage — not inferred or extrapolated.
Why each wrong answer is wrong
- A) They have been shown to reliably treat specific diseases.: This option distorts a specific phrase from the passage or applies a true statement that does not actually answer the question being asked.
- B) They are more effective than dietary changes.: This option distorts a specific phrase from the passage or applies a true statement that does not actually answer the question being asked.
- D) They are most useful in the absence of medication.: This option distorts a specific phrase from the passage or applies a true statement that does not actually answer the question being asked.
Study tip
Underline the answer in the passage before bubbling. If you cannot underline it, you are guessing.
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