Reading comp PrepTest 150 · Section 4 · Question 11

Passage

Questions 8-14  .       Common sense suggests that we know our own  . thoughts directly, but that we infer the thoughts Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Recent psychological research challenges common beliefs about our access to our thoughts
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparisons regarding our access to our thoughts, according to the common view:
      • We "know" our thoughts but have to "infer" the thoughts of others (first sentence)
      • Our knowledge of our thoughts is infallible, but our inferences of others' thoughts are based on their behavior and can be wrong (second sentence)
    • Comparisons between children's access to their thoughts, according to recent psychological research:
      • Children can correctly describe phenomena but misdescribe their thoughts on the same phenomena (third sentence)
      • Children are worse at identifying their thoughts than adults (fourth sentence)
    • Some psychologists' views:
      • We have to infer our thoughts, and we can make wrong inferences (fifth through last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "challenged" (third sentence); "seems" (fourth sentence); "much less capable" (fourth sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Psychologists' view: We do not notice our inferences because we are "experts" on our thoughts
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparisons, according to psychologists:
      • Our belief that we "know" our thoughts is similar to becoming an expert in an area (first sentence)
      • As we become more "expert," we no longer notice that we are making inferences but instead feel like we have direct knowledge (third sentence)
    • Example of perception-changing expertise, according to psychologists:
      • Chess experts who claim they do not make inferences when assessing whether a position is weak or strong (fourth sentence)
    • Cause-and-effect relationship, according to psychologists:
      • We make inferences about our thoughts very quickly, which causes us not to notice that we are making inferences, which causes us to feel that we have direct knowledge about our thoughts, which causes us to believe we cannot be wrong about our thoughts (fifth through last sentences)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's positive evaluation of psychologists' view
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • The author's views:
      • The psychologists almost make the facile claim that we make inferences about our thoughts based on our observations of our internal behavior (first sentence)
      • In reality, they actually say we make our inferences based on cognitive activity that is not thought (second sentence)
      • We make these inferences quickly, and no one can contradict these inferences, so we believe we have direct, infallible knowledge of these thoughts (third through last sentences)
    • Examples of cognitive activity that is not thought, according to the author and psychologists:
      • Fleeting sensations and emotions (second sentence)
    • Cause-and-effect relationships, according to the author:
      • We make inferences about our thoughts very often, which causes us to make quick and reliable inferences (third sentence)
      • No one can contradict our internal thoughts, which causes us to think that our thoughts are not inferences and infallible (fourth through last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "perilously close" (first sentence); "in fact, their arguments do not commit them" (second sentence); "crucial in creating the illusion" (last sentence)

Main Point: Recent psychological research suggests that we may unknowingly infer our thoughts rather than "know" them directly.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 1 (P1, S1) - Common belief

P1, S5 - Psychologists' alternative explanation

P2, S5 - Support for psychologists' explanation

Meta-Structure?

Phenomenon/Explanation - We think — or, perhaps, we infer from our fleeting cognitive activity — that this passage best fits the Phenomenon/Explanation Meta-Structure*. In such a passage, the author will describe an observable fact, behavior, or situation. In this case, it's a behavior — our thought process. Then, the author describes one or more explanations of that phenomenon. In this case, we get two explanations for our thought processes. First, we learn about the old view that we know our thoughts directly (P1, S1). Then, we learn about psychologists' recent argument that we unknowingly infer our thoughts. The discussion of this second explanation takes up the entire passage.

In a Phenomenon/Explanation passage, the main point is generally the explanation the author agrees with. The author offers a positive evaluation of the psychologists' explanation in the third paragraph, so their explanation is the main point. This explanation was summarized in the fifth sentence of the first paragraph, so we can use that for any question that requires us to use the main point. Or, we can go with our own summary: "Recent psychological research suggests that we may unknowingly infer our thoughts rather than 'know' them directly."

*That said, many Meta-Structures could describe this passage. If you think this passage has a Reporting a Viewpoint, Correcting the Record, Old Approach/New Approach, or Proposing a Hypothesis Meta-Structure, you'll likely come up with the same main point and big-picture understanding of the passage that we did. Remember that the Meta-Structures are here to help us think about and describe the passage's structure. We don't need to be 100% correct in which Meta-Structure we choose to develop a strong understanding of the passage's argument.

Comparison: The most prominent minor Meta-Structure is the comparison. (That said, this passage makes liberal use of the minor Meta-Structures, including several examples and cause-and-effect relationships.) In the first and second paragraphs, especially, we get several comparisons about our thought processes. These comparisons are too numerous to outline here (they're all in the Passage Summary above). But we'll get at least a couple of questions related to these, so it's a good idea to highlight or underline the comparative words like "but" (P1, S1; P1, S4), "while" (P1, S2; P1, S3), "analogous" (P2, S1), and "whereas" (P2, S3).

Last Thoughts?

After this passage was administered on the June 2017 LSAT, many test-takers expressed frustration over how difficult this passage was. Much of this frustration can likely be chalked up to its placement — we generally do not think the second passage will be the most difficult. That said, most would agree the passage is not unusually difficult to understand, despite its abstract subject matter. There are a few analogies to help us understand the topic, and the author repeats several of the key points. A lot of the difficulty with this passage, then, will come through the questions. To help us work through these difficult questions, we should rely on the passage as much as we can. If we have to review or check the passage more than we typically would, that's OK!

Question prompt

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

Credited answer: A

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

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Review the relevant part of the passage and notes, if necessary, to anticipate key features of the psychologists' explanation of why people don't notice that they're making inferences about their thoughts

Answer Anticipation

These Application/Analogous Situation questions closely resemble Parallel Reasoning questions in Logical Reasoning. We want to find the answer choice that is structurally similar to the element we're asked to analogize. The correct answer won't have the same subject matter as the passage; instead, it will feature similar characteristics or themes as the element from the passage. Therefore, we should start by reviewing the key features of the element we're asked to parallel.In this case, we're asked to parallel the psychologists' explanation of why people don't notice that they're making inferences about their thoughts. A quick glance at our note for the second paragraph — "Psychologists' view: We do not notice our inferences because we are 'experts' on our thoughts" — might be all some need to anticipate the key features. For those that need a closer look, we can review that paragraph and see that the psychologists argue that "we become so expert in making incredibly fast introspective inferences about our thinking that we fail to notice" that we are making inferences (P2, S5). These psychologists hold that our failure to notice the process leads to a misapprehension — we think we're "perceiving" our thoughts directly and infallibly when we are not (P2, S6). So, we should look for an answer choice that presents a situation in which someone is so experienced or familiar with a process that they fail to notice it or form incorrect beliefs about it.This anticipation may sound rather broad, but we want our anticipation to be very general for these questions. This will help us assess the elements or themes of the answer choices independent of their subject matter.

Answer choices

  1. A
    An anthropologist cannot describe Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem

    (A) Does this present a situation in which someone is so experienced or familiar with a process that they fail to notice it or form incorrect beliefs about it?

    Yes, this does. Here, the anthropologist is so familiar with his culture that he forms incorrect beliefs about it (since he "cannot describe his own culture accurately"). This mirrors the psychologists' description of our thought process. We become so familiar with the inner workings of our minds that we form the inaccurate belief that we know our thoughts directly (P2, S5-6). Much as the anthropologist takes the workings of his culture "for granted" (i.e., fails to properly notice the workings of his culture), we take the inferential processes for granted.

    Still, we were looking for a process (since making deductions about our thoughts is a process), but (A) doesn't really describe a process. While this is a strong contender, it's not a perfect enough match for our anticipation to select without assessing the remaining choices. So, we should look at the rest of the answer choices. If any describe a situation where someone is so experienced or familiar with a process that they fail to notice it or form incorrect beliefs about it, we should select that one. However, if none do, we can return to (A) and select it confidently.

  2. B
    Science is limited with Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this present a situation in which someone is so experienced or familiar with a process that they fail to notice it or form incorrect beliefs about it?

    Nope. This describes a situation in which scientists find it challenging to study a human mind using human reasoning. Experienced test-takers would notice that this has an extremely similar subject matter as the element from the passage, which is a red flag on Analogous Situation questions. We need to parallel the key features of the element from the passage, independent of the subject matter presented in the passage.

    Additionally, scientists don't find it difficult to study the human mind because they are too familiar with the human mind. The answer choice seems to imply that human reasoning is inadequate for studying the human mind, perhaps because the human mind operates with something other than human reasoning. At any rate, this answer choice doesn't mention scientists' familiarity or expertise, so this doesn't match our anticipation.

  3. C
    As they develop, children Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this present a situation in which someone is so experienced or familiar with a process that they fail to notice it or form incorrect beliefs about it?

    No. These children overlook lessons from concrete experiences, but not because they are too familiar with these concrete experiences. Instead, they miss these lessons because they're more familiar with a different type of knowledge — formal abstraction. This does not parallel the explanation of why we don't notice the inferences we make about our thoughts.

  4. D
    Judges are barred from Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this present a situation in which someone is so experienced or familiar with a process that they fail to notice it or form incorrect beliefs about it?

    Negative. First, this answer choice doesn't say these judges fail to notice anything or form incorrect beliefs in cases involving their family members. It just says that there's a "potential conflict of interest." That doesn't mean the judges actually overlook anything or develop misconceptions in these cases. Even if we ignore that issue, this answer choice doesn't say these conflicts of interest arise because judges are too familiar with their family members. The conflict of interest could arise because they have, for instance, affection for their family members.

  5. E
    A ship's commander must Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this present a situation in which someone is so experienced or familiar with a process that they fail to notice it or form incorrect beliefs about it?

    Nope. This commander may overlook some duties and decisions, but it's not because she's too experienced to notice that she's performing these duties or making these decisions. It's because she's too busy with other duties and decisions. This doesn't match the reason we don't notice that we're making inferences about our thoughts.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 77%
  2. B 7%
  3. C 8%
  4. D 6%
  5. E 2%

Deeper help

Ask follow-ups on any step

Optional AI tutor mode will let you interrogate assumptions, compare answers, and drill weak patterns without leaving the page.

Human-written explanations stay primary; AI is an add-on when you want it.

Discussion

View all discussions Start a discussion