Q5 - Seasonal allergy symptoms are the immune

[Laura Damone]

Question Type:
Inference (Most Strongly Supported)

Stimulus Breakdown:
No argument, so we just need to understand the facts:
Seasonal allergies are an immune response to pollen in the air.
When lots of pollen is inhaled, it can trigger inflammation, which, in turn, causes the symptoms.
Medicines can minimize symptoms, but it's more effective to just stay inside on dry, windy days during allergy season.

Answer Anticipation:
There's no conditional or causal statements that can be chained together here, so there isn't much anticipation we can do. Just know what was said and head to the answers.

Correct answer:
C

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Unsupported. How would a medicine even do that?

(B) Unsupported. We don't know what proportion of pollens do or do not cause allergies. "Most" is a red flag word for Most Strongly Supported questions.

(C) Correct! If staying inside is a more effective way to minimize symptoms than treating the symptoms with medicine, that probably means that staying inside is preventative. And since the symptoms are caused by inhaling lots of pollen, staying inside likely prevents that from happening.

(D) Unsupported. These two ways of minimizing symptoms are presented as alternatives. We don't know to what extent people do both simultaneously.

(E) Unsupported. Nobody said anything about air filters!

Takeaway/Pattern:
Most Strongly Supported questions aren't typically predictable. If you can't chain together the facts in the stimulus, move quickly to the answers and work wrong-to-right, eliminating any that are unsupported.

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