Question about Reasoning
MCAT Student
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So this explanation, particularly the first part, is exactly what I thought about when making my prediction. I said yes because of the fact that theory is in use today, so it would have to include yes. My question is if this is valid in general. If I know a theory or something is relatively accepted (except when talking about CARS passages) can I use that fact to influence my decision on a question like this?
Answers
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You'll want to be careful that you're answering the question at hand. For this one, yes the new information included in the question stem does indeed align with the present-day theory about endosymbiosis, but if the question presented new information that seemed to present contradictory information about that theory, then it would weaken it, similar to how a CARS question would work. Note that in that case, it's not saying the theory is wrong, but asking you to evaluate the effect of the information on the claim/argument. Those kinds are questions are relatively rare in the science sections, but I've seen it enough time that I'd caution you from using the same logic again for a future question.
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Ok, so how would one then solve this without that logic because then I would consider D.
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The reasoning in (D) doesn't work though - it's saying that mitochondria cannot make their own protein. The question stem says "most proteins in present-day mitochondria are made by cytoplasmic ribosomes", which implies that there are still some protein made by the mitochondria, which is also known as fact from content background. More broadly though, notice that this question is asking if you can explain how this new information can be aligned with the passage information, and (A) proposes a reasonable explanation for how it works with the passage, AND is scientifically plausible.
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