PrepTest 154, Section 1, Question 5
Taste buds were the primary tool early humans(63 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(11 more words not shown)
- Atakes a necessary(14 more words not shown)
- Bfails to consider(13 more words not shown)
- Cfails to consider(13 more words not shown)
- Dfails to consider(16 more words not shown)
- Etakes what might(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
That sounds like part of the story. Why does it have to be the whole story?
The passage gives taste a useful job: helping people decide what to eat. Sourness can warn that food has spoiled; bitterness can warn of poison. Sweet and salty tastes can help people recognize food that meets nutritional needs. I can see why being able to distinguish those tastes would matter to early humans.
Then the author says this completely explains our present ability to distinguish all four. That's a much bigger claim. Showing a useful role for taste doesn't show that this role is the only explanation for the ability. Could there have been other influences as well? The passage hasn't investigated them or ruled them out.
What we’re looking for
We don't need to supply a proven alternative account. We can accept every stated benefit of using taste to test food and still question the jump to “completely explained.” For the flaw question, I'd describe the problem as oversimplifying: the author gives a possible explanation, then treats it as the entire explanation. Focus on that actual jump instead of trying to fit the passage into a memorized list of labels.
Working the answers
- A
This would involve identifying something that must be true for the conclusion to hold, then treating that requirement as enough to prove the conclusion. The author doesn't reason through a stated requirement that way. The leap is from taste's useful role to a claim that this role explains everything about the ability in question. A different familiar flaw description doesn't capture that leap.
- B
Associating a food with its smell more than its taste doesn't tell us why people can distinguish these four tastes. Someone could think first of the smell of a food and still use taste to assess it. This observation about associations doesn't address whether the proposed explanation of taste is complete.
- C
A nutritious food could taste bitter raw and lose that bitterness when cooked. That doesn't tell us whether the ability to distinguish tastes has an additional explanation. Nor does the passage say every bitter food is poisonous: bitterness is described as a warning of many poisons. The cooking example doesn't identify the argument's overreach.
Don't add a claim that the raw food must be harmful, either. The answer says its taste changes; it doesn't establish a change from unsafe to safe.
- D
A smaller range of available foods could still give early humans reasons to distinguish sour, bitter, sweet, and salty tastes. The size of the menu doesn't establish whether food testing completely explains the ability. We need to question the completeness of the account, not simply point out another difference between early and contemporary life.
- ECorrect
The food-testing account might explain part of the phenomenon. The argument treats it as the complete explanation without establishing that nothing else contributed. That's the objection we had while reading: useful evidence for an explanation isn't automatically evidence that the whole matter has been settled.
More Flaw questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Flaw questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.