Lucas M. answered • 06/07/19
*REDUCED RATE DUE TO COVID-19* 99th Pct. SAT/ACT Tutor / Homework Help
Answer Choice B is the correct answer because both passages point out that teixobactin is effective against infections that are particularly resistant to antibiotics. Lines 8-10 say, “In animal tests, teixobactin proved effective at killing off a wide variety of disease-causing bacteria — even those that have developed immunity to other drugs,” and Lines 74-77 say that teixobactin “killed the tuberculosis bacterium, which is important because there is a real problem with resistant tuberculosis in the developing world.” This most closely matches Answer Choice B, which says that both passages make the point that teixobactin could be useful in “combating infections that are no longer responding to treatment with other antibiotics.” Answer Choice A is incorrect because teixobactin itself would not prove useful in making the future development of antibiotics standard, even if the methodology that produced it would. Answer Choice C is incorrect because neither passage talks about teixobactin “controlling the spread of pathogenic soil fungi.” Answer Choice D is incorrect because, again, the methodology that produced teixobactin may be useful in “shaping a new method of studying the effectiveness of antibiotics,” but teixobactin itself wouldn’t be.
How to solve this? The Question asks, “Both passages make the point that teixobactin could be useful in [...]?” To solve this, we should go back to both passages and look for what they say about the usefulness of teixobactin. Passage 1 talks about the usefulness of the antibiotic in a number of places. In Lines 7-10 it says that “teixobactin proved effective at killing off a wide variety of disease-causing bacteria — even those that have developed immunity to other drugs.” In Lines 39-43 it describes how teixobactin cured mice of respiratory tract infections with “no noticeable toxic effects.” And, finally, in Lines 44-50 it describes how teixobactin works differently than other antibiotics, breaking down a bacteria’s cell walls as opposed to its proteins. We don’t have to identify all of these points to answer this question correctly, but should have the general impression that Passage 1 believes teixobactin is particularly useful in the way it treats infections, either because of how it targets disease or in its ability to treat infections previously resistant to antibiotics. Passage 2 talks about the usefulness of teixobactin in its second paragraph, saying that it “killed Gram-positive bacteria” as well as “the tuberculosis bacterium, which is important because there is a real problem with resistant tuberculosis in the developing world.” Both of these Passages, then, comment on the usefulness of teixobactin in treating infection. Moreover, both mention that teixobactin is effective against particularly resistant infections, so we can predict that our answer choice may deal with this point.
Answer Choice A says that teixobactin could be useful in “standardizing the future development of antibiotics produced in laboratory environments.” Because teixobactin itself wouldn’t be responsible for standardizing this future, even if the methodology that produced it would be, we can eliminate this option. Answer Choice B says that teixobactin could be useful in “combating infections that are no longer responding to treatment with other antibiotics.” Because this answer choice matches our understanding of the Texts for both passages, we should keep this option. Answer Choice C says that teixobactin could be useful in “controlling the spread of pathogenic soil fungi” which neither passage discusses, so we can eliminate this option. Answer Choice D says that teixobactin could be useful in “shaping a new method of studying the effectiveness of antibiotics.” Because, again, this is more true of the methodology that produced the discovery of teixobactin and not the drug itself, we should eliminate this option. That leaves us with Answer Choice B, which we should choose for our correct answer.
