gmatnmein2010 wrote:The interstitial nucleus, a subregion of the brain's hypothalamus, is typically smaller for male cats than for female cats. A neurobiologist perFORMed autopsies on male cats who died from disease X, a disease affecting no more than .05 percent of male cats, and found that these male cats had interstitial nuclei that were as large as those generally found in female cats. Thus, the size of the interstitial nucleus determines whether or not male cats can contract disease X.

Which one of the following statements, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

Cause - Size of Interstitial Nucleus (Hypothalamus)
Effect - Disease X

(A) No female cats have been known to contract disease X, which is a subtype of disease Y.
Incorrect : Issue is not about female cats contracting disease X. Issue is about MALE cats contracting disease X.

(B) Many male cats who contract disease X also contract disease Z, the cause of which is unknown.
Incorrect : Disease Z is irrelevant to the scope of the argument.

(C) the interstitial nuclei of female cats who contact disease X are larger than those of female cats who do not contract disease X.
Incorrect : Irrelevant

(D) Of 1,000 autopsies on male cats who did not contract disease X, 5 revealed interstitial nuclei larger than those of the average male cat.
Incorrect : Argument is about autopsies done on male cats who CONTRACTED disease X. Eliminated.

(E) The hypothalamus is known not to be causally linked to disease Y, and disease X is a subtype of disease Y.
Correct : This destroys the argument by implying that there must be an alternate cause for the stated effect (hypothalamus or its sub region is not a cause of disease y or its subtype disease x)