The truth about tomatoes, or trying to think logically

“ORANGE, mango, tomato, lemon.”

This was one of the questions found in one of our recently held examinations. The question required us to understand and ‘logically’ find the odd one out of the set, simple as that… Not! To begin with, we all have our own perception of logic. Logic primarily means: (Google it)

1. A science that deals with the principles and criteria of validity of inference and demonstration: the science of the formal principles of reasoning.

2. A particular mode of reasoning viewed as valid or faulty.

It is with this basic understanding that we are all, therefore, entitled to our own logical opinion on certain matters. But back to the topic at hand.

“Orange, mango, tomato, lemon”.

This pending question again. I, personally, have answered everything in the test paper except for this particular question but still I went ahead and answered what I thought was the most logical answer – Mango. After which, I placed my paper on the teacher’s desk and stepped out. To my surprise, everyone in my class had the same dilemma. And so we debated, what really was the odd one out?

Yes, all of these are fruits, all have distinct tastes and we added more common facts to solidify the connection among them. We agreed on a lot of things but then again, someone has to be right. I stated that mango was the logical answer since it was the only one in the set that has one large seed inside the fruit itself unlike the rest which has small numerous seeds – fact. Then another classmate of ours said that it was tomato that was the right answer because it was the only one that can be cooked – fact. But all the rest can still be cooked or even be part of a dish? We all pondered once again and continued with the debate. One classmate supported the latter’s claim stating that tomato cannot be turned into a juice – WRONG! Well, she hasn’t heard of tomato juice alias Bloody Mary and a lot more (although I’m not fully aware of it all) so we let that pass. Then another classmate supported my claim stating that the shape was the ultimate difference between the fruits – mango! Another one said tomato because it grows on a shrub unlike the rest that grows on trees – fact (but we’re not talking about how or where the fruits grow).

Then, one other classmate said that orange was the odd one out considering that it is also a color, unlike the rest. Hmmm…good point. We had to stop our debate because it turns out our endless ranting was distracting the other classes. We went to our instructor and asked what the answer was, she smiled at first then told us that she won’t say it just yet and so we waited. The next Monday, as we patiently waited for the results of our exam – out instructor was absent. (The agony continues…) we resumed on Wednesday and yup, she was present then. She gave us our test papers and we all checked it. Upon arriving on that anticipated question, she smiled again and joked, “It must have been real hard on some of you since I was absent last Monday and all of you were expecting to find out the answer right away.” She told us the right answer afterwards, some of us were happy with the results – others, contented nonetheless with the reason as to why that was the answer. Either way, what this simple question (which turned into a debate) really did was prove that we all are entitled to our own opinions according to our own logic. No one really answered wrongly, we all were correct considering the different reasons that were stated and how creative and resourceful our answers were. Think of the creative juices that flowed all throughout that impromptu debate and the endless ideas that we could muster if we all will it to be.

Oh… the right answer was tomato.

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