Pollen and other allergens can cause cells in the nose to release histamine, a chemical that inflames nasal tissue and causes runny nose, congestion, and sneezing.
Statements
On the hunt for Conditional, Causal, Quantitative, or Pivot wording, we find some Causal ideas and a final Pivot.
Causal (can cause) Pollen Release Inflamed nasal tissue, (and ⇢ of ⇢ runny nose, sneezing, others) histamine and congestion
Causal (minimize / by blocking) Antihistamines ⇢ Block ⇢ Minimize action of allergy histamine symptoms
Interestingly, to me, it didn't say that antihistamines stop the histamine from being released from the cells, just that it neutralizes the effects that histamine would normally have.
Pivot (however) Histamine plays no role in how colds produce symptoms.
Evaluate / Goal
Since our goal in reading Inference paragraphs is to look for ways to synthesize information (combine 2 or more facts to derive some other statement), the causal chains we checked out involve combining ideas together.
So the correct answer might just be rewarding our understanding of that causal chain, like .
But... (pun intended)... it is very common when an Inference paragraph ends with a Pivot (but, yet, however), that the intended synthesis is integrating that last fact with the stuff we were told prior.
So given all we learned about histamine / antihistamine, what truth can we derive from the fact that histamine plays no role in how colds produce their symptoms?
The correct answer will likely be testing what this final fact tells us, in light of all the stuff we heard before it.