Logical Reasoning

PT114 · S1 · Q24 One-year-olds ordinarily prefer

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One-year-olds ordinarily prefer the taste of sweet food to that of salty food.

Conclusion (thus)

A young child's taste preferences can be affected by the type of food he or she has been exposed to.

Evidence

One-year-olds usually prefer sweet to salty. But if you feed a one-year-old salty food for a year, by age two they will choose salty over sweet.

Evaluate

The "experiment" described does involve exposing 1-year olds to salty foods and does involve their taste preferences changing a year later.

So there doesn't seem to be a Missing Link in terms of what the evidence vs. conclusion are talking about. The only difference is that the conclusion is Causal (affected by) and the evidence is just Chronological (a year later, something has changed).

Just because the salty food exposure was followed by a change in preference doesn't mean that the salty food exposure caused the change in preference.

This is essentially an Explain Curious Fact argument where the author is wondering why the kid switches from preferring sweet to preferring salty and chalks it up to that year of exposure to salty foods.

For that type of argument, the author has to assume, there isn't some Alternate Explanation for the evidence + the Author's Explanation is plausible

Goal

Look for an answer ruling out an alternate explanation for why the kids prefer salty foods a year later, or look for something required for the author's story (that exposure to salty changed their preference to salty) to be plausible.

24.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

  1. Correct

    Two-year-olds do not naturally prefer

    Why this is right

    This has the lovable Defender "not" right by the verb, so we'll negate and see if this answer weakens. Would it hurt the argument to say, "Hey, author 2 year olds naturally prefer salty to sweet?" Definitely! That would be an Alternate Explanation for why the 1 year olds, one year later, are preferring salty foods. It isn't because of the exposure to salty they got over the year of us forcing them to eat salty things; it's just a natural developmental thing. It would have happened even if we hadn't fed them salty things. Since the negation weakens, this is the correct answer.

    Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    68% picked this

  2. A child’s taste preferences usually

    Bad Assumption

    If this answer were talking about a child's taste preferences changing for natural reasons, then this would weaken. It would provide an Alternate Explanation for why the 1-year olds switched from liking sweets to liking salty, one year later. It wasn't from our exposure; it was just because that usually happens as a child ages from 1 to 2. An author wouldn't assume something that weakens their argument. And if this answer were saying that a child's taste preferences usually change from exposure to certain foods, then it would be Too Strong. The conclusion is only saying that a young child's taste preferences CAN be affected by food exposure, not that it's USUALLY affected by food exposure.

    16% picked this

  3. Two-year-olds do not naturally dislike

    Bad Assumption

    Because of the lovable "not", we'll negate and see if it weakens. Does it hurt the author for us to say, "Hey, author -- 2 year olds naturally dislike salty food so much that, given the choice between salty foods and some other foods, they would not choose the salty food." Cluttered sentence, but basically it's just saying, when negated, "2 year olds naturally dislike salty food". That strengthens the argument. The author thinks that two year olds are preferring salty food because of the exposure, not because of natural inclinations. So negating this answer actually fits the author's argument, which means this is definitely not the correct answer.

    11% picked this

  4. The salty food fed to

    Bad Assumption

    Too Strong (must) Out of Scope (taste pleasant) If we negate this, it'd be saying, "Hey, author, the salty food doesn't need to be delicious in order to change the infants' taste preferences. Even if it's nasty tasting salty food, that will still change the infants' taste preferences." That negation wouldn't weaken. It would actually strengthen, because it's talking about the food exposure changing the preferences.

    5% picked this

  5. Sweet food is better for

    Out of Scope

    This is speculating some causal backstory for the opening sentence. Maybe that's why 1 year olds usually prefer sweet food, but maybe not. It doesn't make any difference which type of food is better for infant development. The argument is purely about a preference for one type of food changing to a preference for another type, and about what caused that preference to change. There isn't anything in this argument relating to whether that change in preference is a good/bad thing for the infant's development.

    0% picked this

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