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good question

by rishianand7 » Sun Aug 25, 2013 4:10 am
According to recent research, a blindfolded person whose nostrils have been pinched so that smelling is impossible will have great difficulty in differentiating a bite of an apple from a bite of a raw potato. This clearly demonstrates that taste buds are not the only sense organs involved in determining the taste of a piece of food.

Which of the following premises, is an assumption required by the argument?


A)All people agree that an apple and a potato differ in taste

B)There are no other senses involved in tasting other than taste, smell, and sight.

C)The word "taste" can be used to describe an experience that involves sight or smell or both

D)The research was based on experiments that were conducted on a broad spectrum of the general population

E)People who have been blindfolded and whose nostrils are pinched can differentiate a bite of an apple from a bite of an onion more easily than they can differentiate a bite of an apple from a bite of a raw potato.
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by vinay1983 » Sun Aug 25, 2013 4:40 am
Acc to research----Blindfolded person + pinched nostril=no differentiation in taste of apple and potato.
Conclusion----taste buds are not the only sense organs involved in determining taste of food.

What can be the assumption?

1. Only taste buds are involved in determining taste, none of the sense help in this.
2. Different foods taste differently

Contention is among A B C. D E are either too wordy or out of scope.

B and C mention sight and smell are also important, however the conclusion says"This clearly demonstrates that taste buds are not the only sense organs involved in determining the taste of a piece of food"

This means earlier we had a notion that only the taste buds were considered responsible for differentiating food tastes.

Any option mentioning this would have been correct, but we don't have such option.

Then, what if we agreed that 2 different foods taste the same?Then the experiment or the argument above would fall apart.

I still think we need help of the expert's in this matter.
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by theunheardmelody » Thu Sep 12, 2013 7:34 am
I vote B since option C only involved sight and smeel and not taste. Author does not state that taste buds have no role to play but says thre are other factors as well. This is covered in B.

I would definitley like the experts to pitch in on this Q :) .
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by lunarpower » Sat Sep 21, 2013 7:26 am
I received a private message about this one.

In assumption questions, remember that you can negate the potential assumptions. If that negation destroys the argument, then you've found an assumption.

(A)
Negation: There are people who can't distinguish the taste of an apple from that of a potato.
If that's the case, then the argument is destroyed, because we have an alternate explanation for the results of the experiment.

--

Getting rid of (B) and (C) isn't so bad.
The argument is only concerned with "taste buds" vs. "NOT taste buds".
The particular identity of "NOT taste buds" is fungible-it doesn't matter whether it's your eyes, or your nose, or your feng shui, or whatever. If it's not taste buds, it's all the same. So, we don't need to assume anything about the particular identity of the NOT-taste buds.

(D) For this to be relevant, you'd need even more assumptions. For instance, you'd have to assume that different people taste things differently. (If not, then there's no advantage in testing a diversity of people.) We don't know about those additional assumptions, so this choice is weak sauce.

(E) We obviously don't have to assume anything about onions.
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by lunarpower » Sat Sep 21, 2013 7:27 am
vinay1983 wrote:D E are either too wordy or out of scope.
This is critical reasoning. "Wordy" is not a thing here.
All that matters in CR is what is stated. Not how it is stated.
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by vinay1983 » Sat Sep 21, 2013 8:40 am
lunarpower wrote:
vinay1983 wrote:D E are either too wordy or out of scope.
This is critical reasoning. "Wordy" is not a thing here.
All that matters in CR is what is stated. Not how it is stated.
Sorry Ron!What I intended here was Option D and E are too long and slight irrelevant here. It was not wordy per se. My bad.

Thanks for your help!
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by theCodeToGMAT » Sat Sep 21, 2013 10:11 am
Using Negation Technique.
Conclusion: Taste Buds are not the only sense organs to determine taste of a food.
To Prove: Taste buds are the only taste sending organs....

{A}- Negated--> All people don't agree... some agree.. some don't... doesnt give us detailed info of the people who agreed and were they deaf,blind,etc.INCORRECT

{B}- Negated--> other senses are involved.... INCORRECT

{C}- Negated--> "taste" cannot be associated for sight/smell .... hence.. "taste" is restricted only to tongue.. hence proved.. CORRECT

{D}- Negated--> research was not based on broad spectrum...... INCORRECT>

{E}- Negated--> People who don't have been blindfolded and pinched nostrils can judge... hence.. more taste organs exist.. INCORRECT
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by lunarpower » Sat Sep 21, 2013 9:49 pm
theCodeToGMAT wrote:Using Negation Technique.
Conclusion: Taste Buds are not the only sense organs to determine taste of a food.
To Prove: Taste buds are the only taste sending organs....
Whoa, no.
That's not how the negation technique works.

You don't try to establish the opposite of the conclusion. (!!)

In the negation method, you just try to invalidate the current argument. You're definitely not trying to prove that the opposite point is true.
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by vinay1983 » Sat Sep 21, 2013 10:02 pm
The particular identity of "NOT taste buds" is fungible-it doesn't matter whether it's your eyes, or your nose, or your feng shui, or whatever
This is what made my day! Feng shui! :) B-)
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by theCodeToGMAT » Sat Sep 21, 2013 10:05 pm
I don't agree with you Ron.. maybe the steps which I follow are different from the Negation Steps you are following.

I have applied this technique in around 200 questions and all were correct.

Rishi, can you share the OA for this question.
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by lunarpower » Sat Sep 21, 2013 11:04 pm
theCodeToGMAT wrote:I don't agree with you Ron.. maybe the steps which I follow are different from the Negation Steps you are following.

I have applied this technique in around 200 questions and all were correct.

Rishi, can you share the OA for this question.
When you negate an assumption, you have to show that the conclusion can be false. But you don't have to prove that it's false.

E.g., take a very simple argument:
Tomás is from Spain. Therefore, he has dark hair.
The assumption in this argument is, of course, that everyone from Spain has dark hair.

If you negate that assumption, you get Not everyone from Spain has dark hair. In other words, at least some people from Spain do not have dark hair.
This doesn't prove that Tomás has non-dark hair (= the opposite of the conclusion. All it shows is that the conclusion is not established by the argument. I.e., we don't know whether Tomás actually has dark hair; it's possible, though not certain, that this is false.
That's all that's necessary in the negation test.

The negations will sometimes actually prove that the conclusion is false, but certainly not always.
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by theCodeToGMAT » Sat Sep 21, 2013 11:21 pm
lunarpower wrote:
theCodeToGMAT wrote:I don't agree with you Ron.. maybe the steps which I follow are different from the Negation Steps you are following.

I have applied this technique in around 200 questions and all were correct.

Rishi, can you share the OA for this question.
When you negate an assumption, you have to show that the conclusion can be false. But you don't have to prove that it's false.

E.g., take a very simple argument:
Tomás is from Spain. Therefore, he has dark hair.
The assumption in this argument is, of course, that everyone from Spain has dark hair.

If you negate that assumption, you get Not everyone from Spain has dark hair. In other words, at least some people from Spain do not have dark hair.
This doesn't prove that Tomás has non-dark hair (= the opposite of the conclusion. All it shows is that the conclusion is not established by the argument. I.e., we don't know whether Tomás actually has dark hair; it's possible, though not certain, that this is false.
That's all that's necessary in the negation test.

The negations will sometimes actually prove that the conclusion is false, but certainly not always.
I meant the same.. i think my wordings "To Prove" were too strong :) .. I will make sure that I use "To show"
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by lunarpower » Sun Sep 22, 2013 1:38 am
Still too strong.

"Prove/show that the conclusion is false" is too strong, and won't work on many (maybe even most) of these problems.

"Show that the conclusion can be false" is the right idea.
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by buoyant » Sat Dec 14, 2013 11:00 am
I came across this question in Veritas question bank.

The official answer is C, but as per the above discussion , answer is A.

Can some expert please clarify the confusion?
What will be the take away from this question?
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