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How to answer these type of Questions? Please Help me

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by krishnapavan » Thu Jun 06, 2013 11:10 pm
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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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

by tarunjohri » Tue Jun 11, 2013 10:08 pm
krishnapavan wrote: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.
I would follow a process of elimination in case you are not able to figure out an assumption immediately. In the question

E. Weakens the argument.
D. The question is not about the validity of the result, it is about what is the assumption behind the stated conclusion.
C. Incorrect. It misses out the taste buds.
B. Irrelevant. even of other senses are involves, those senses can be deactivated in some similar manner. That would again make the researchers come to the conclusion that without these senses it is very difficult to differentiate between apple and potato by simply relying on the taste-buds.
A. You are left with only A.

If you analyze A it makes sense because unless it is true that apple and potato do differentiate in taste, the whole premise falls flat. If they do taste identical then there is no need for eyes or smell because the taste-buds might be judging the tastes correctly.


I hope you could comprehend.
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