Nhận biết (M1)

Text 1
In separate studies, Yanbo Xiao and colleagues and Xinhua He and colleagues examined whether plants transfer nutrients to one another using a common mycorrhizal network (CMN) --- a lattice of fungal strands in the soil. Xiao and colleagues excluded all pathways other than the CMN by using barriers to keep the plants’ root systems separate while allowing mycorrhizal strands through --- a crucial step He and colleagues’ study did not take.
Text 2
Xiao and colleagues took the necessary precaution of separating the plants’ root systems (thereby excluding root-to-root transmission). However, any barrier used must allow the thread-like hyphae of a CMN to pass through, and this permeability would also allow liquids through. Thus, the researchers’ experimental design cannot ensure that any nutrient transfer observed can be attributed to a CMN and not to some other pathway.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to the characterization of Xiao and colleagues’ study in Text 1?

• A.

  By arguing that the author of Text 1 has conflated the method used by Xiao and colleagues with that used by He and colleagues

• B.

  By claiming that the author of Text 1 has misrepresented what Xiao and colleagues were trying to achieve with their experimental design

• C.

  By asserting that the author of Text 1 has overstated the effectiveness of the method that Xiao and colleagues used

• D.

  By pointing out that the author of Text 1 has overlooked studies that reported results that contradict those reported by Xiao and colleagues