LSAT 154 – Section 1 – Question 05

LSAT 154 - Section 1 - Question 05

September 2017

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT154 S1 Q05
+LR
+Exp
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Eliminating Options +ElimOpt
A
5%
156
B
1%
156
C
1%
154
D
3%
150
E
91%
163
129
139
149
 +Easier 147.621 +SubsectionMedium

Taste buds were the primary tool early humans used for testing foods. Sour taste warns of possible spoilage of food while bitterness is a warning of many poisons. Early humans also recognized sweet foods and salty foods as meeting nutritional needs. So the fact that people can now clearly distinguish these four tastes—sour, bitter, sweet, and salty—is completely explained by people’s use of taste to test for the healthfulness of foods.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that the fact people can distinguish between sour/bitter/sweet/salty is completely explained by the use of taste to test the healthfulness of foods. This is based on the fact that early humans used taste buds to test foods for healthfulness.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes that there’s no other additional explanation for why humans can distinguish between sour/bitter/sweet/salty. The premises establish that testing for healthfulness is one of the reasons for this ability, but that doesn’t guarantee there aren’t additional reasons.

A
takes a necessary condition for the truth of its conclusion to be sufficient to justify that conclusion
The argument doesn’t present any necessary conditions for the truth of the conclusion. The premises tell us specific ways in which taste can help humans stay healthy, but these specific ways aren’t necessary for the conclusion to be true.
B
fails to consider that many people associate foods more with their smells than with their tastes
This possibility doesn’t affect the argument. Whether people “associate” foods more with smells doesn’t reveal anything about the purpose of the ability to distinguish different tastes.
C
fails to consider that some nutritious foods are bitter when raw but not after being cooked
This possibility doesn’t weaken the argument. Foods might change taste after being cooked, and that might reveal something about the healthfulness of the food after being cooked.
D
fails to consider that most early humans ate a much more limited range of foodstuffs than do contemporary people
The argument doesn’t make any assumptions about the range of foods eaten by humans. The argument is simply about the purpose of distinguishing tastes. We know early humans could distinguish between certain tastes; the range of their diet doesn’t affect this.
E
takes what might be only a partial explanation of a phenomenon to be the complete explanation
Taste helping to detect healthfulness of foods is a partial explanation of human’s ability to distinguish tastes. But the author assumes it’s a complete explanation. This overlooks the possibility there could be other reasons humans can distinguish tastes.

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LSAT PrepTest 154 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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