#5 - Sharita: Anyone who owns a cat should have it spayed

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Point of Agreement. The correct answer choice is (B)

Chad and Sharita discuss reasons that contribute to the problem of stray cats. Sharita says there are so many stray cats around because people fail to spay or neuter their cats, or to care for the cats’ offspring. Chad explains that stray cats are nuisances, spread diseases, and cause injuries. He also states that people feeding stray cats out of kindness only exacerbate the stray cat problem, unless the cats are subsequently captured and adopted.

In review, the respective arguments were:

• Sharita:
  
  Premise: anyone who owns a cat should have it spayed or neutered unless, they are willing to care for the cat’s offspring.
  
  Premise: people fail to do this
  
  Conclusion: thus, there are so many stray cats around
  
  Chad:
  
  Premise: stray cats are not only a nuisance, they spread diseases and cause injuries to other cats and to humans
  
  Premise: people feed stray cats out of kindness
  
  Conclusion: feeding the animals out of kindness only exacerbates the problem, unless the cats are then captured and adopted

Chad and Sharita agree there are more stray cats than there should be. Chad thinks there are more stray cats than there should be because people feed them out of kindness, but then the stray cats are not captured and adopted. Sharita thinks there are too many stray cats because cat owners fail to spay or neuter their cats, or to care for the cats’ offspring. While they offer different reasons for thinking there are more stray cats than there should be, they both agree that there are more stray cats than there should be.

Answer choice (A): Sharita did not discuss whether it is usually wrong to feed stray cats. In fact, she made no mention of feeding stray cats, let alone whether doing so is usually wrong. To be correct, the answer choice must include information referenced by both Chad and Sharita.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. As discussed above, Sharita and Chad agree that there are too many stray cats.

Answer choice (C): Sharita did not mention cats posing a risk to humans. As with answer choices (D) and (E), this is an issue discussed by Chad, but not by Sharita.

Answer choice (D): Sharita did not mention cats spreading diseases to other cats.

Answer choice (E): Sharita did not state why people feed stray cats.