Reading comp PrepTest 134 · Section 4 · Question 18

Passage

Questions 13-19 Passage A  .        Evolutionary psychology has taught us to examine  . human behavior from the standpoint of Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Science


Passage A

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • An approach is described, and a question/problem with it is noted
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Approach - Evolutionary Psychology - Apply evolution (proliferation of genes) to behavior
    • Problem - How do you explain altruism?

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • A probable answer is provided
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Probable answer - Identification/empathy - Help those with similar appearance and thus probably same genes
    • Pass on genes for empathy/identification

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Progression of evolution noted
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Start - Small, kin-based groups that promoted altruistic genes
    • Later - Larger groups when people had altruistic genes, expanded to cover others

Passage B

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • An approach is heavily criticized
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Evolutionary Psychology - “conspiracy theory” - genes are said to have motives, when could be you just love your kids

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • (Concession) Why Evolutionary Psychology is persuasive
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Example - Monogamy/slowly maturing offspring = monogamy is to propagate genes

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author’s criticism of Evolutionary Psychology is fleshed out
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Overall strength of opinion - EPs may be right, may be wrong
    • Flaw - Pick one explanation when “all sorts” are possible
    • Need to show - Explanation makes sense and is “only” explanation
    • Humans might do X because of Y, or might do X because they like X

Main Points:

Passage A - While altruism might appear problematic to Evolutionary Psychology, an evolutionary drive to propagate your own genes can explain why humans evolved to help others in need.

Passage B - Evolutionary Psychology can appear persuasive on its face, but it rests on an assumption about the motives of genes that it hasn’t shown to be true because there are alternative explanations.

Key Lines?

Passage A:

  • Lines 1-3 - A key approach/field is introduced
  • Lines 7-12 - A problem/question about that theory is raised
  • Lines 13-14 - A probable answer is presented
  • Lines 24-26 - That answer is explained

Passage B:

  • Lines 35-38 - The Author criticizes (strongly) an approach/field
  • Lines 43-44 - The Author concedes that the opposing view (approach/field) is initially persuasive
  • Line 53 - The Author shows his opinion to be more middling than Paragraph 1 may suggest
  • Lines 54-56 - The Author’s key criticism is noted (there are alternative explanations)
  • Lines 56-59 - A requirement for the opposing side is raised

Meta-Structure? Relationship Between Passages?

Both passages discuss Evolutionary Psychology, but they have very different opinions on it. The Author of Passage A has bought into the field, saying that it has taught us how to examine human behavior. It does raise a “thorny” question, but the Author believes there’s an answer to it. The Author of Passage B, on the other hand, believes that the field is a “kind of conspiracy theory,” though he does walk that back a bit by saying that evolutionary psychologists may be right or may be wrong. While the initial language might suggest a much more negative view in Passage B, it turns out that the Author believes that there’s a logical flaw/shortcoming in their argument that needs to be addressed, but he’s not committed to saying the field is definitely wrong.

Question/Answer - The Author of Passage A brings up a “thorny” issue for Evolutionary Psychology - altruism. Why would someone spend resources to help others if behavior is driven by evolution? She presents a probable answer in Paragraph 2 that she then explores through the rest of the passage. An answer to a key question is generally the main point of the passage, leading us to the main point as we wrote it out. Passage B also has a Question/Answer structure, presenting a question at the end of Paragraph 2 that calls the concession it makes into question. And, similar to Passage A, the answer to the question largely drives the main point - that the evolutionary psychologists might be right or might be wrong - they’ve put forward an explanation without showing it to be the only explanation.

Last Thoughts?

Passage B, in particular, is a bit weird. The opening paragraph makes the viewpoint sound very strong, but the Author walks it back in Paragraph 2 (by making a concession about the apparent plausibility of Evolutionary Psychology) and in Paragraph 3 by suggesting that it might be correct. We should be careful in analyzing answers about the Author’s attitude in that passage, as it’s much more nuanced than it initially appears.

Question prompt

Which one of the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: D

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Science

Strategy Overview

Define what the Author of Passage B meant when he called evolutionary psychology a “conspiracy theory,” then apply that the answer choices

Answer Anticipation

The question stem here tells us that the assertions in the answer choices are from Passage A, so we don’t need to think about which ones show up there - we’re told that they all do.So, instead, we should focus on what the Author of Passage B means when he refers to evolutionary psychology as a “conspiracy theory.” If we head to the lines that the question stem points to, we can see that he explains himself (“that is, it…”). How nice.Looking at the explanation, he says that he means it explains behavior “by imputing an interest (the proliferation of genes) that the agent of the behavior does not openly acknowledge, or indeed, is not even aware of.” Hmm, that’s...not clearly stated - maybe it’s not very nice! Let’s work through it, one piece at a time.Imputing an interest means that evolutionary psychologists are saying that someone has an interest. That interest is stated as being the proliferation of genes. Who’s the agent of the behavior - in other words, who’s acting altruistically? A human. So the evolutionary psychologists say that humans have an interest in proliferating their genes, but that humans don’t acknowledge this or even seem aware of it.With all that noted, the passage does provide its own example of this “conspiracy theory” (Lines 39-42), which is really where we should have started. There, it’s example is that being interested in your child’s well-being isn’t actually you loving your kid, but rather your genes’ “conspiracy” to propagate themselves.Our interpretation and this example both point to the same type of answer - one where genes are working to ensure their own propagation through behavior that seems altruistic.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Evolutionary psychologists seek to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Trying to adapt one theory (evolution) to another area (behavior) isn’t the same as the conspiracy theory as it’s described in the passage, which has to do with motives of which the actor isn’t aware.

  2. B
    Altruism presents a difficult Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) That altruism is a difficult problem for a theory isn’t an example of an actor not being aware of their motives.

  3. C
    An altruistic individual uses Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) There’s no indication here that they’re motivated by something of which they’re not aware. If this answer mentioned that they were doing so to ensure that their genes - which were shared by the person they were helping - would be passed on, then this answer would be in play.

  4. D
    Genes may promote their Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem

    (D) This answer features genes serving as the motivating factor for the altruistic behavior (“actions that appear unselfish”) of humans. That matches up with the Author of Passage B’s description of the “conspiracy theory,” so this is the correct answer.

  5. E
    Early humans lived in Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) This answer has nothing to do with the propagation of genes or altruistic behavior, so it’s incorrect.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 14%
  2. B 9%
  3. C 5%
  4. D Credited 70%
  5. E 1%

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