PrepTest 114, Section 1, Question 24
One-year-olds ordinarily prefer the taste of sweet food(67 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- ATwo-year-olds do not(7 more words not shown)
- BA child's taste(9 more words not shown)
- CTwo-year-olds do not(16 more words not shown)
- DThe salty food(13 more words not shown)
- ESweet food is(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if the children would start liking salt anyway? We aren't comparing the same children at the same age with different food exposure. A year passes while they receive the salty food. They start as one-year-olds and end as two-year-olds. So two things have changed: their food exposure and their age.
The proposed explanation is plausible. Repeatedly eating something could affect what a child chooses. But the observations also leave me wondering whether the preference develops naturally as children get older. If two-year-olds would prefer salty food without that feeding history, the switch wouldn't establish that exposure caused it.
What we’re looking for
The necessary-assumption question asks what this explanation depends on. I'd look for a statement ruling out that natural shift as the explanation for the result. We're testing the argument's evidence about preference, not deciding what parents should feed children.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
If two-year-olds naturally preferred salty food to sweet food, that would account for the observed change without needing the salty-food exposure to produce it. A rules out that competing explanation.
The argument uses the change during this year as evidence that exposure affects preference. It therefore needs the assumption that the children weren't simply developing the preference they would naturally have at two. A doesn't prove that exposure is the only possible influence; it removes the specific age-related explanation that would undercut this inference.
- B
The argument doesn't require children's preferences usually to change during that year. The change could occur only under particular feeding conditions, and the conclusion that exposure can affect preference could still be true. B makes a general claim about how commonly tastes change, which the argument doesn't need.
- C
This is about a natural dislike and a choice over some other foods. Our comparison is specifically salty versus sweet, and the children described have also had a year of exposure. An initial dislike could potentially be overcome by that experience. The argument doesn't need C's claim about their natural willingness to choose salt over unspecified alternatives.
- D
The salty food needn't be pleasant to the children at the outset for exposure to affect their later preference. Learning to like something could involve repeated exposure to a flavor they initially dislike. D adds a requirement about how the food must taste instead of addressing whether exposure caused the change.
- E
Nutritional benefits aren't the conclusion. Sweet food could be better, worse or no different for development without settling why the children change what they prefer to eat. The argument needs a link between exposure and preference, not a judgment about which food promotes development.
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