DISCUSSION: Scientists’ beliefs were only mentioned in paragraph 3. Line 30 literally has the words “many scientists believe”.
It’s important to flag the locations of viewpoints when you read a passage, so you can go back if a question asks about it (I just flag them mentally).
Paragraph 3 says these scientists believe that tropical plants may still have undiscovered materials in them that will help us make new medicines.
This information was mentioned in the context of an argument that we should conserve rainforests. And indeed, the line after the scientists says “Even if one does not that this indicates….biodiversity is…a resource”
So, this implies that scientists think that rain forest plants are a valuable resource, because the plants can help us find medicines.
___________
- We don’t know this. The scientists said “some” undiscovered plants have these properties. That could be a small amount, but “some” can be as large as all. “Some” is too vague to support this answer.
- This is completely unwarranted. The passage never says what diseases the medicines can cure. Line 33 just says “disease fighting properties”. It doesn’t say tropical disease fighting properties.
- CORRECT. See the analysis above. Note that this answer may seem to repeat the passage, but it doesn’t. The scientists said that plants may help us find medicines. Then the line after the scientists implies that this fact about plants makes many people think the plants are valuable. i.e. there is a difference between the fact “plants make medicine” and the belief “something that makes medicine is valuable”.
- This answer just mixes together ideas from the second and third paragraph. Beware this sort of nonsense answer. It’s equivalent to saying something like “LSAC constructs the LSAT by creating bar exam questions”. Both familiar concepts relevant to law school, but no one links them together in that way.
- The scientists didn’t say this. All that scientists said is that there are some undiscovered plants with that can fight diseases. In fact, if scientists believed the plants were already “almost completely extinct” then there would be little medical point to preserving biodiversity: the valuable stuff would already be dead!
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