Reading comp PrepTest 150 · Section 4 · Question 12

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

According to the passage, 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

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Refer to notes or what you highlighted/underlined to locate where the passage discusses the results of gaining greater expertise in a field, and refer to the relevant part of the passage as needed to find that answer choice that must be true

Answer Anticipation

For questions that ask us to find a specific detail mentioned in the passage, quickly finding and reviewing that piece of information is paramount. That is why we make brief notes describing the role of each paragraph and highlight or underline definitions and the minor Meta-Structures — doing so helps us find the salient information efficiently and reliably. Once we review that part of the passage, we can look through the answer choices to see which one is best supported by what we reviewed.Here, the question asks what results from someone gaining greater expertise in a field. Where did that discussion appear in the passage? Our note for the second paragraph is, "Psychologists' view: We do not notice our inferences because we are 'experts' on our thoughts." That note mentions expertise, so the supporting text is in the second paragraph. However it's important that we note that this question asks about becoming an expert in any field — it doesn't ask specifically about what happens when we become experts at inferring our thoughts. So, rather than research the second half our the paragraph (which discusses these "introspective inferences"), we should consult the first half of the paragraph.Upon review, we'll see that the author claims that "Greater expertise appears to change not only our knowledge of the area as a whole, but our very perception of entities in that area" (P2, S2). To clarify, the author says that once we gain expertise in a field, we think "we are able to see and to grasp these entities and their relations directly, whereas before we could only make inferences about them" (P2, S3). In other words, as we gain expertise in a field, our perception of the things and relationships we observe in that field changes. We begin to believe that we see these things and relationships directly and immediately, rather than have to think about them and draw conclusions about things and relationships. (For instance, LSAT experts would read this question stem and immediately see it as a Must Be True question, whereas non-experts see "According to the passage" and consciously think about which type of question uses that phrase. Both experts and non-experts see that phrase and infer that it is a Must Be True question. But this inference happens so quickly for experts that they don't even notice that they're making an inference.)So, let's look for an answer choice that says gaining expertise in a field changes how we perceive the things and relationships we observe in that field.

Answer choices

  1. A
    an altered way of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this answer choice say that gaining expertise in a field changes how we perceive the things and relationships we observe in that field?

    Not quite. This says expertise changes how we express our "judgments about issues in that field." The passage, however, says the way we perceive these issues in the field changes (P2, S2-3). The passage describes an internal process, while (A) describes communication, an external process. Nothing we reviewed in the passage mentions changing how we express or articulate our opinions, so (A) is unsupported.

  2. B
    a more detail-oriented approach Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this answer choice say that gaining expertise in a field changes how we perceive the things and relationships we observe in that field?

    No. We didn't review anything about people becoming more "detail-oriented" as they gain expertise. Therefore, experienced test-takers would quickly eliminate this answer choice.

  3. C
    an increased tendency to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this answer choice say that gaining expertise in a field changes how we perceive the things and relationships we observe in that field?

    Not quite, though many test-takers understandably select this option. These test-takers probably relied on the second half of the second paragraph to make their deduction. The author claims that people make inferences about their thoughts so frequently that they become experts in this process and begin to form the false impression that they know their thoughts directly (P2, S5-6). From this claim, these test-takers likely conclude that we ignore our "errors in judgment" as we become experts.

    However, that conclusion is unjustified for a few reasons. First, the second half of the paragraph describes becoming an expert at inferring our thoughts. This question stem asked us about becoming an expert in a field. While the psychologists argue that the two are "analogous" (P2, S1), that doesn't mean the two are alike in every way. Even if we form incorrect impressions when inferring our thoughts, that doesn't mean we form incorrect impressions when we become experts in a field.

    Additionally, the passage does not suggest that expertise in inferring thoughts entails making "error[s] in judgment within that field." Psychologists do not argue that we make incorrect judgments about our thoughts. That would involve us making incorrect inferences about what our thoughts are. Instead, psychologists argue that we make an incorrect judgment about the process — we do not think we are making inferences in the first place. (While the third paragraph discusses the fallibility of our thoughts, this is not related to our expertise. Rather, we believe our thoughts are infallible because no one can contradict our interpretations (P3, S4-5).)

    Finally, the first half of the second paragraph — the part that actually describes becoming an expert in a field — does not say that people ignore the incorrect judgments they make within their field. For instance, in the chess example, the author never suggests that chess players ignore when they are wrong about a position's relative strength or weakness.

  4. D
    a substantively different way Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem

    (D) Does this answer choice say that gaining expertise in a field changes how we perceive the things and relationships we observe in that field?

    Yes. A "substantively different way of understanding relations" in that field is synonymous with changing "how we perceive the things and relationships we observe in that field." As the author states, we become experts and begin to believe that we see these relations directly rather than infer what these relations are (P2, S3). Because this matches our anticipation, we can select (D) and move on to the next question.

  5. E
    a reduced reliance on Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this answer choice say that gaining expertise in a field changes how we perceive the things and relationships we observe in that field?

    Nope. This answer choice addresses inferring thoughts. However, this question asked us about becoming an expert in a field, not becoming an expert at inferring our thoughts. Even ignoring that issue, the passage says that we stop noticing that we're making inferences when we become experts. However, we still rely on our sensations and emotions when inferring our thoughts. After all, the author says that we make inferences from these "fleeting and instantaneous sensations and emotions" (P3, S2).

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 6%
  2. B 4%
  3. C 27%
  4. D Credited 52%
  5. E 12%

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