Critical Reasoning

Meat from chickens contaminated with salmonella bacteria can cause serious food poisoning. Capsaicin, the chemical that gives chili peppers their hot flavor, has antibacterial properties. Chickens do not have taste receptors for capsaicin and will readily eat feed laced with capsaicin. When chickens were fed such feed and then exposed to salmonella bacteria, relatively few of them became contaminated with salmonella.

In deciding whether the feed would be useful in raising salmonella-free chicken for retail sale, it would be most helpful to determine which of the following?

(A) Whether feeding capsaicin to chickens affects the taste of their meat
(B) Whether eating capsaicin reduces the risk of salmonella poisoning for humans
(C) Whether chicken is more prone to salmonella contamination than other kinds of meat
(D) Whether appropriate cooking of chicken contaminated with salmonella can always prevent food poisoning
(E) Whether capsaicin can be obtained only from chili peppers.

Could someone help me deciding between A and D please.

gocoder wrote:Meat from chickens contaminated with salmonella bacteria can cause serious food poisoning. Capsaicin, the chemical that gives chili peppers their hot flavor, has antibacterial properties. Chickens do not have taste receptors for capsaicin and will readily eat feed laced with capsaicin. When chickens were fed such feed and then exposed to salmonella bacteria, relatively few of them became contaminated with salmonella.

In deciding whether the feed would be useful in raising salmonella-free chicken for retail sale, it would be most helpful to determine which of the following?

(A) Whether feeding capsaicin to chickens affects the taste of their meat
(B) Whether eating capsaicin reduces the risk of salmonella poisoning for humans
(C) Whether chicken is more prone to salmonella contamination than other kinds of meat
(D) Whether appropriate cooking of chicken contaminated with salmonella can always prevent food poisoning
(E) Whether capsaicin can be obtained only from chili peppers.

Could someone help me deciding between A and D please.

We're trying to determine whether it would be useful for purposes of retail sale to give chickens an antibiotic that would reduce the likelihood that they'd be contaminated with salmonella.

Clearly A is important. If the antibiotic makes the chickens safe to eat, but also makes them unpalatable, it's not going to help retail sales. Before people may have not purchased chicken because they feared getting sick. Now, they might avoid the chicken because the antibiotic makes it taste funny.

D doesn't shed any light on whether it makes sense to give the chicken this antibiotic. We know that people sometimes get salmonella. If it's true that cooking chicken properly can always prevent salmonella poisoning, it simply means that people are sometimes eating chicken that isn't cooked properly, and would thus have an interest in making sure that the chickens are salmonella-free when they consume them. And if cooking chicken properly can't always prevent salmonella poisoning, well, clearly there'd be even more of an interest in making sure the chickens don't have salmonella.

[quote="DavidG@VeritasPrep"]
We're trying to determine whether it would be useful for purposes of retail sale to give chickens an antibiotic that would reduce the likelihood that they'd be contaminated with salmonella.

Clearly [spoiler]A[/spoiler] is important. If the antibiotic makes the chickens safe to eat, but also makes them unpalatable, it's not going to help retail sales. Before people may have not purchased chicken because they feared getting sick. Now, they might avoid the chicken because the antibiotic makes it taste funny.

D doesn't shed any light on whether it makes sense to give the chicken this antibiotic. We know that people sometimes get salmonella. If it's true that cooking chicken properly can always prevent salmonella poisoning, it simply means that people are sometimes eating chicken that isn't cooked properly, and would thus have an interest in making sure that the chickens are salmonella-free when they consume them. And if cooking chicken properly can't always prevent salmonella poisoning, well, clearly there'd be even more of an interest in making sure the chickens don't have salmonella.[/quote]

Thanks so much for your reply!

I see the point I was missing. Since the question asks [i]"whether the feed would be useful in raising salmonella-free chicken..."[/i], any choice that offers alternate ways, which bypass or don't involve the use of antibiotic, in raising the chicken wouldn't shed light here, right ?
Correct me if wrong,

If the question were to ask for the same argument[i] In deciding to raise salmonella-free chicken for retail sale, it would be most helpful to determine which of the following[/i], whether choice D would make sense ?

I see the point I was missing. Since the question asks "whether the feed would be useful in raising salmonella-free chicken...", any choice that offers alternate ways, which bypass or don't involve the use of antibiotic, in raising the chicken wouldn't shed light here, right ?
Correct me if wrong,

Exactly right. Anytime you're evaluating a plan in a CR argument, any answer choice positing that a different plan might be better isn't going to be relevant. It's possible for a plan to work but to not be the best possible option.

If the question were to ask for the same argument In deciding to raise salmonella-free chicken for retail sale, it would be most helpful to determine which of the following, whether choice D would make sense ?

Even then, I think it's problematic for the reason I mentioned in my previous post - the fact that people get salmonella from contaminated meat means that the chicken is sometimes not being prepared in the most hygienic way, so there'd still be interest in having the meat be disease-free when it's sold.