Hi AminahM, thank you for your question!
This is a Must Be True question, so we know already that the correct answer must pass the Fact Test. In order to understand what can be proven by referring to the facts in the stimulus, let's break the stimulus down!
We learn a few important things from the stimulus:
- Dark honey tends to have more antioxidants than light-colored honey
- The most healthful strains of honey ALL have a high concentration of antioxidants
- However, some strains of honey that are produced by bees harvesting sage nectar are light-colored and are among the most healthful strains of honey
The stimulus contains no specific conclusion, which is common in MBT questions. That said, we can prephrase a correct answer with the information we already know. Immediately after reading these premises, I notice two things: it seems that light-colored honey can be among the most healthful and that I can infer some light-colored honey has a high concentration of antioxidants, since all healthful honey (which includes the light-colored honey mentioned in the last sentence) has an unusually high concentration of antioxidants. This inference is my prephrase, since it's a clear inference from the stimulus that is not mentioned in the last sentence.
With this in mind, let's look at the answer choices!
Right away, (A) is incredibly appealing. (A) states that some strains of honey produced by bees harvesting sage nectar (aka the honey in the last sentence) are unusually high in antioxidants. This makes a lot of sense! Does it pass the fact test? Well, yes! We know from the stimulus that "certain strains of honey produced by bees harvesting primarily sage nectar are among the most healthful strains of honey" and that "the most healthful strains of honey are all unusually high in antioxidants", so it's entirely factual to say that
some strains produced by bees harvesting sage nectar are unusually high in antioxidants.
This is the correct answer!
Answer choice (B), on the other hand, is not something we can infer from the stimulus. We do not know if most plants produce nectar that results in light-colored honey, in fact, we barely know anything about the plants bees are harvesting from in the first place. This contains new information and thus is incorrect.
Turning to answer choice (C), we run into similar issues. (C) states that "light-colored honey tends to be more healthful than dark honey", which is a tendency not explored by the stimulus. We know that dark honey tends to have more antioxidants than light-colored honey, and that at least some light-colored honey is among the most healthful, but we cannot go so far as to establish a tendency between light-colored honey being more healthful than dark honey. Therefore we can eliminate (C).
Answer choice (D) is incorrect because it contains new information. We do not know whether or not some strains of honey produced by sage nectar are unusually low in antioxidants, all we know is that some strains of honey produced by sage nectar are among the most healthful and thus contain and unusually HIGH number of antioxidants. We can eliminate this answer.
Last but not least, answer choice (E). This answer choice contains very strong language, so we should already be on edge. Nothing in the stimulus proves that the strain with the HIGHEST antioxidant content is definitively a light-colored honey, so (E) cannot pass the Fact Test and can be eliminated.
I hope this helps!
Kate
