Reading comp PrepTest 140 · Section 4 · Question 15

Incorrect. Proposals would need to be specific enough about what to change that they could, in some way, be implemented. Here, the only thing that really comes from the last paragraph is that people can learn superior performance, which isn't a proposal for educational changes as much as a statement that these changes can come through education.

Incorrect. (Lines 23-27) It's not clear what the "two consequences" referred to here are. The main consequence was that a new belief in training over talent arose to explain superior performance. And there's nothing at odds with that other than the opposing view—which can't count as one of the two consequences of the findings!

Incorrect. (Lines 51-57; Lines 62-64) The first half of this paragraph does recapitulate the evidence/arguments against heritability of outstanding talent. However, while the second half does bring up an area that might warrant more research (the role of motivation in such talent), the Author never advocates for research to be done in that area.

Incorrect. There's no objection to the Author's argument in the last paragraph, so we can eliminate this answer.

Correct. Question Type:
Argument Structure

Strategy Overview:
Review our note for the role of that paragraph

Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
When dealing with these Argument Structure questions, we should have a general idea of what we're looking for already noted. Whether we actually wrote something down or just took a second to define the role after reading the paragraph, this is a question that we should already have thought of.

With that noted, we can see that our tag for the last paragraph is that it wraps up the passage and brings up a new focus for predictions. Digging into the specifics, we see that it cited evidence showing innate talent doesn't explain exceptional performance (Lines 51-54), but that "motivational factors" would serve as "superior predictors" of that performance (Lines 62-64). We know that predictions tend to be important in LR questions, and that's no different for RC. As such, we should have noted it when reading and anticipate that the answer will in some way reference it.

Answer Explanation:
The final paragraph infers that innate talent doesn't have to serve as an explanation for superior performance, as it could be explained by intense training (Lines 55-57)—inference one. It also suggests that motivational factors, inasmuch as they explain why some people train so hard, might serve as a better predictor of superior performance than innate talent (Lines 59-64)—inference two. This answer describes the last paragraph, so it's the correct answer. It also hits the prediction made in the stimulus!

Key Takeaway:
There are some types of statements that carry logical force and thus tend to end up in correct answers when present in the stimulus/passage. One of them is predictions.