Q16 Zebra mussels

[twu]

I'm having a hard time figuring out what E means. Could anyone explain it for me?

[maryadkins]

So we want to approach this Inference question by asking what we can conclude as true based on what we've been given. We're told that these mussels clog the intake pipes of these plants, BUT they also can be used in the "discharge streams" of chemical plants to improve water quality and eliminate waste. So basically they're both good sometimes and bad sometimes.

(E) tells us that the waste that the mussels remove will stay in them and if they don't transform it, THEY become waste. Hmm. It's definitely a bit of an inference. It makes sense, though...if they consume the waste, then that means the waste is inside them (if, like (E) says, they don't transform it). But let's consider the others, as this is a "most strongly supported" question and we want to choose the BEST answer.

(A) and (B) are WAY out of scope. We don't know about the Mississippi River and the pearl industry or about other kinds of clams in the Great Lakes!

(C) is also not supported. How would we know this? Maybe there is a way to clear them.

(D) confuses the two parts of the stimulus. The mussels clog the pipes. The algae is bad for the water quality. We're never told that the algae clogs the pipes in the nuclear and water plants.

(E) is the best answer.

[twu]

Thanks for the explanation. I didn't choose E partly because of the very broad indicator word "any" in the answer choice. I couldn't see where that corresponds to in the stimulus. And I reasoned that E was not necessarily true, since even if some of the hazardous waster the mussels remove did not stay in the mussels, the facts in the stimulus could still stand.

[AshleyT786]

I still don't understand how E is supported; it just brings in entirely new info that wasn't touched upon in the stimulus. Isn't that problematic for MSS questions? There just isn't any link as far as I can see