Critical Reasoning

They come from the OG Verbal Workout book.

p. 131 #52.
52. Useful protein drugs, such as insulin, must still be administered by the cumbersome procedure of injection under the skin. If proteins are taken orally, they are digested and cannot reach their target cells. Certain nonprotein drugs, however, contain chemical bonds that are not broken down by the digestive system. They can, thus, be taken orally.The statements above most strongly support a claim that a research procedure that successfully accomplishes which of the following would be beneficial to users of protein drugs?
(A) Coating insulin with compounds that are broken down by target cells, but whose chemical bonds are resistant to digestion
(B) Converting into protein compounds, by procedures that work in the laboratory, the nonprotein drugs that resist digestion
(C) Removing permanently from the digestive system any substances that digest proteins
(D) Determining, in a systematic way, what enzymes and bacteria are present in the normal digestive system and whether they tend to be broken down within the body
(E) Determining the amount of time each nonprotein drug takes to reach its target cells

The answer is A
My question is: [spoiler]I was deciding between answers A and B. I initially chose B because if we could convert nonprotein drugs that resist digestion to become useful protein compounds, wouldn't that solve the problem? My problem with answer A is that how would we know if the insulin can be digested given that it's covered up?[/spoiler].

IMO A and not B b/c it is the chemical bonds that are being broken down by the digestive system. Non protein drugs have no relevance here, except to infer that they do not contain the chemical bonds that cause the breakdown by digestive system rendering insulin non functionable.

We actually don't want the insulin to be digested; if the insulin were digested, they wouldn't be able to reach the target cells. Answer B is a bit out of scope, because the protein users wouldn't really care much about what were done with non-protein drugs. They care about making their proteins indigestible but "digestible" by the target cells.

Why not C.

tohellandback wrote:Why not C.

My 2 cents:
[C] is too extreme. Also, we're not talking about any proteins. We're specifically interested about those proteins which when taken either through skin or any other form does not get digested because if they do, then they do not reach their target cells. Also, removing any of such substances from the digestive system is not a solution to help proteins from unbreaking the chemical bonds. What about proteins other than the one that comes with medication-insulin. If we remove such substances that help us digest proteins in general, then people won't have 6 packs or won't have substanstial muscle mass because proteins play a vital role in increasing the strength of muscles.

I hope the mumbo-jumbo is understandable.

It seems to me that the right answer is C.