This was question was so easy that I re-read the stimulus twice wondering what I was missing.

@VincentLaGuardiaG. Same, I got this one right but honestly didn't have a great basis for doing so. Was suspicious of A because it started with "whenever," which is pretty all-encompassing. After reading it out, my mind immediately went to "what if local gov has no money/resources to intervene?" then struck it out. For B it was just "oh yeah author said asteroids are unavoidable but mentioned something about the environment in the "voluntary" paragraph so I'll go with that."

Thankfully I didn't read the rest of the ACs because if I read C I most likely would've switched answers lol.

Okay, so am I the only one who thought that the doubt the author had in the first sentence of P4 was aimed towards the process of a virus carrying altered DNA to the reproductive cells and NOT the process of reverse transcription in immune cells?

I caught the inference that these mechanisms are taking place within the immune system, but I still disregarded B and chose E (even though it's far too extreme and broad as an AC) because I thought that the mechanism Steele wasn't able to see was the act of a virus taking altered DNA to the reproductive cells for replacement.

If it's the reverse transcription that the author has doubts about Steele having witnessed, why are the preceding 3 sentences (before he raises his concerns in P4) all about the delivery system for getting the altered DNA to the repro cells and not at all about the transcription process itself? This seems like shitty passage org to me, but maybe I'm inept, idk.

So would AC D be correct if the stimulus said: "only if Skiff's book is both as important and as well written as Skiff claims"? Would this language be strong enough to show that BOTH A (Important) + B (Well-Written) are needed in tandem to yield C (Published)?

This is the worst RC Passage I've ever read. I average -2/-3 on full RC sections but -4 on this passage alone. Shit's ridiculous, I better never see this again.

@PaulABrox The conclusion doesn't depend on AC E as an assumption. It does depend on AC D, however.

This is one of those questions where I find it easier to eliminate ACDE than straight up choosing B.