LSAT 105 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q22

LR Question 22 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Children fall into three groups …

QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption

CONCLUSION: Supertasters find sharp cheddar more bitter than mild cheddar, while nontasters find them equally bitter.

REASONING: The more bitter a food tastes, the less children like it.

1. Supertasters strongly prefer mild cheddar to sharp
2. Regular tasters weakly prefer mild to sharp
3. Nontasters don’t have a preference

ANALYSIS: The author sees this difference in preferences and concludes there must be a difference in bitterness.

But there could be other reasons children have different preferences. Maybe it’s from saltiness, smell, texture, etc.

So the argument only works if bitterness is the thing explaining the preference. That would let us infer that:

• Supertasters strongly prefer mild, so sharp must taste more bitter to them.
• Nontasters have no preference, so sharp must not taste more bitter to them.

___________

1. This compares how much supertasters like mild cheddar vs. how much regular tasters like it. But the argument is about each group’s preference between mild and sharp, not how one group rates mild compared to another group.
2. Age might explain why a child belongs to one taste group, but it doesn’t connect preference for cheddar to perceived bitterness. The conclusion is about how sharp and mild cheddar taste to each group.
3. Sweetness is a different taste quality. Even if sweeter foods are liked more, that doesn’t tell us whether the mild/sharp cheddar preference is caused by bitterness.
4. CORRECT. This gives the missing link: bitterness is the only factor relevant to the preference between sharp and mild cheddar. If bitterness is the only thing driving the preference, then stronger preference for mild means sharp tastes more bitter, and no preference means sharp doesn’t taste more bitter.
5. This tells us about how wide a variety of foods each group likes. It doesn’t explain why they prefer or don’t prefer mild cheddar over sharp cheddar.