Command of Evidence: Quantitative

SAT Reading and Writing· difficulty 3/5

Researchers studying caffeine tolerance gave four groups of mice daily caffeine doses for three weeks and then measured running-wheel activity (revolutions per hour) during a final test dose. Group 1 (no prior caffeine): 412; Group 2 (low daily dose): 380; Group 3 (medium daily dose): 290; Group 4 (high daily dose): 195. The researchers argued that tolerance to caffeine increases with the size of the prior daily dose. The strongest data point for this claim is ______

Which choice most logically completes the text using the data above?

  • A

    the steady decline in activity from Group 1 (412) through Group 4 (195) as prior dose size increased.

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  • B

    Group 2's small drop from Group 1, suggesting low doses do little.

  • C

    Group 4's especially low activity.

  • D

    Group 1's high activity, since untreated mice were most active.

Explanation

The claim is that tolerance scales with prior dose size. Only choice B captures the monotonic relationship across all four groups, which is the strongest evidence for a dose-response pattern. Single data points (A, C, D) don't establish the trend.

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