Critical Reasoning

Passage:
The question whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is certainly imprecise, because we are not sure how different from us something might be and still count as “intelligent life.” Yet we cannot just decide to define “intelligent life” in some more precise way since it is likely that we will find and recognize intelligent life elsewhere in the universe only if we leave our definitions open to new, unimagined possibilities.

1.A) The argument can most reasonably be interpreted as an objection to which one of the following claims?
(A) The question whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is one that will never be correctly answered.
(B) Whether or not there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, our understanding of intelligent life is limited.
(C) The question about the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe must be made more precise if we hope to answer it correctly.
(D) The question whether there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is so imprecise as to be meaningless.（C）
(E) The question whether there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe is one we should not spend our time trying to answer.

1 B)The passage, if seen as an objection to an antecedent claim, challenges that claim by:
(A) showing the claim to be irrelevant to the issue at hand
(B) citing examples that fail to fit proposed definition of “intelligent life”
(C) claiming that “intelligent life” cannot be adequately defined
(D) arguing that the claim, if acted on, would be counterproductive（D）
(E) maintaining that the claim is not supported by the available evidence



Please discuss.
OA 1 A) C
OA 1 B) D

Q1: As the passage is meant to be an objection to an original claim, the key to this question is to find a claim that is the exact opposite of the point in the given passage.

The point in the given passage is that we cannot decide to define intelligent life in a more precise manner. So, we should be finding a claim which states that we should be defining intelligent life in a more precise manner.

Thus, the answer is C as the claim in C states that the question about the existence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe must be made more precise.

Q2: Sorry, I can't really help you on this one as I still think the answer is C.

I suppose one clue is to look at the verb in the options - "showing", "claiming", "citing", "arguing", "maintaining". Out of all these actions, "arguing" is clearly the strongest way of challening a claim (as opposed to merely claiming or citing) and that corresponds to the answer, D.

I'm going with D. No confidence on my answer. Can anyone tell OA?