Taste buds were the primary tool early humans used for testing foods. Sour taste warns of possible spoilage of food w...

Annie on February 2, 2020

Hi @toyalli,

This question asks you to pick the answer choice which identifies a critique of the argument. With this type of question, I like to try to consider the answer before turning to the answer choices.

Here, the argument says that early humans used taste buds to test foods and then describes which taste meant what. The argument then concludes that the ability to identify certain tastes is explained by people's use of taste to test foods.

This conclusion seems to be a big leap from the premises. It takes some evidence that tastes buds were used to test foods to prove that the reason we can identify these tastes is to test foods. The premises haven't told us that, so there's a big gap between them and the conclusion.

(E) is correct because it identifies the flaw I just described. The first two sentences provide some support for the idea that taste and testing foods are connected, but they do not provide full support for the conclusion.

(A) is tricky but ultimately incorrect. It is describing a conditional logic flaw, and this question does not use conditional logic (normally, you can identify conditional logic with if/then statements). The flaw here is that the conclusion is not supported by the premises, not that conditional logic has been misused.