Why is it not irony? He was talking about how much pain the mouse must be in then how endorphins are released and he must feel no pain? That's ironic.

I do not see that as irony but as an analytical fact of how brains can defend against what just upon looking appears to be a horrifically painful experience; however, the mouse, in this instance, has no more pain compared to the tree for which we know in its dying, had no pain.

Laura, thank you for chiming in. Amanda, I agree with Laura that it is more of a description of the mechanics of pain-resisting hormones when a mammal (mouse, in this case) is being killed. [An aside: a friend's brother was accidentally shot by a gun, and he experienced the same thing: a split second of painful shock, then no pain when he collapsed. Luckily he survived.]

Irony is when there is a reversal of expectations, like the proverbial "the cobbler's children have no shoes", or "the knife factory owner gets 1000 spoons when all she needs is a knife".

In the case of the mouse, there were two separate events. In the first one, the author thought and expected that it would be a painful death for the mouse, and in this event and based on his assumption, it would be. There is no reversal of expectations. In the second one, the author thought further and concluded that it wouldn't be too painful. In other words, there is a reversal of conclusions, but not of expectations, because each event has its own separate expectation.

An analogy. The first event: you meet the man of your dream. In the second event, you meet his beautiful wife and conclude he is no longer the man of your dream. It is not ironic.

You can also thank Alanis Morissette for writing "Ironic", a superbly written tune, in which all of the supposedly ironic examples are not ironic.

I too don't understand the answer. The question is asking which choice best represents the authors feelings on pain and death...choice c is his feelings of admiration for animals in the ecosystem...

Hello, Mae. The question and answer don't conflict. Look at it this way. The author's feelings about animals in the ecosystem is that of admiration, specifically about the relationship between pain and death. The last sentence is the key: "If I had to design an ecosystem in which creatures had to live off each other and in which dying was an indispensable part of living, I could not think of a better way to manage."

I was once advised to read through the answer options before reading the actual text, would you recommend that?

Maria, if you can read very fast, you can scan quickly the answer options.

Skimming does loose my points most of the time! :(
Thanks Arcadia