Reading comp PrepTest 150 · Section 4 · Question 9

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: C

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

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Review the psychologists' interpretation of the experiments with children, determine weaknesses in that claim to anticipate how to weaken it, and select the answer choice that makes the claim less convincing

Answer Anticipation

We'll approach Weaken questions in Reading Comprehension in a very similar manner as we would in Logical Reasoning. We can review the excerpt from the passage, just like we'd carefully read an argument in LR. We'll then interrogate the claim for any weaknesses, as the correct answer on both RC and LR will probably weaken the claim by exploiting a problem. Additionally, causation flaws are commonplace on Weaken questions in both RC and LR, so we should be especially mindful of those.In this case, we're asked to weaken the psychologists' interpretation of the experiments with children. Reviewing the first paragraph, we'll recall that children were asked to describe simple phenomena in this experiment. The children were able to describe the phenomena but often misdescribed their thoughts about the same phenomena (P1, S3). From this, the psychologists noted that children have the same thoughts about these phenomena as adults but are less capable of identifying these thoughts (P1, S4). The psychologists concluded that the children's thoughts were "unobservable entities" that the children had to infer (P1, S5-6). In other words, the psychologists argue that the children's inexperience at deducing their thoughts caused them to misdescribe their thoughts about the phenomena.So, what might weaken the psychologists' interpretation? We should note that these psychologists are explaining a phenomenon. These psychologists explain why the children had trouble identifying or accurately conveying their thoughts about the observed phenomena. The psychologists argue it's because children, like all people, have to infer their thoughts and, presumably, the children are not yet experts at inferring their thoughts (P1, S5-6). Whenever a Weaken question features an argument purporting to explain a phenomenon (in RC or LR), the correct answer will probably offer an alternative explanation. So, the correct answer will probably present another reason why the children couldn't accurately identify or describe their thoughts about the observed phenomena. Alternative explanations are difficult to anticipate with precision, but at least we know the shape the correct answer will most likely have.That said, many things could feasibly weaken the psychologists' interpretation of the experiments ,: so we should keep an open mind as we progress through the answer choices. We'll start by asking ourselves, "Does this weaken the psychologists' belief that the children have difficulty inferring their thoughts about phenomena?"

Answer choices

  1. A
    Some children who took Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this weaken the psychologists' belief that the children have difficulty inferring their thoughts about phenomena?

    No, but this is a popular answer choice that typifies one of the test-writers' favorite tricks on Weaken questions: extremely weak counterevidence. The psychologists are trying to explain why most children had trouble identifying their thoughts in the experiment. Saying that some children were just as good at identifying their thoughts as adults doesn't change the fact that most children had difficulty identifying their thoughts. A few outliers won't weaken the general trend observed in the experiment.

    And this doesn't weaken the psychologists' interpretation. Perhaps the children who are good at identifying their thoughts became experts in inferring their thoughts abnormally quickly. This would reinforce the psychologists' belief that most children had difficulty identifying their thoughts because they were not yet experts.

  2. B
    Experiments with older children Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this weaken the psychologists' belief that the children have difficulty inferring their thoughts about phenomena?

    Not quite. The psychologists assume that most young children in the experiment couldn't accurately identify their thoughts because the children hadn't yet gained expertise in inferring their thoughts. If older children were as accurate as adults, this might support the psychologists' assumption. The older children had more time to become experts at inferring their thoughts. The psychologists would expect the older children to be better at identifying their thoughts. Therefore, this answer choice provides evidence consistent with the psychologists' explanation.

  3. C
    The limited language skills Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem

    (C) Does this weaken the psychologists' belief that the children have difficulty inferring their thoughts about phenomena?

    Yes! This offers an alternative explanation for the psychologists' explanation. The psychologists argue that the young children in the experiment had trouble identifying or conveying their thoughts because they are not yet experts at inferring their thoughts. (C) describes another reason these children may have had this trouble — they have limited language skills that makes it hard to communicate their thoughts. These children may directly "know" their thoughts but find it challenging to share that direct knowledge with their limited vocabularies. As predicted, this answer choice presents an alternative explanation, and we can be confident that it is correct.

  4. D
    Most young children cannot Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this weaken the psychologists' belief that the children have difficulty inferring their thoughts about phenomena?

    Nope. This is irrelevant to the psychologists' interpretation. Whether the children know the difference between direct and indirect access to their thoughts doesn't affect whether they have direct or indirect access to their thoughts. Besides, the psychologists argue that adults are not aware they lack direct access to their thoughts (P2, S1, S6). Clearly, the psychologists' explanation does not depend on us knowing we lack direct access to our thoughts.

  5. E
    The psychologists who conducted Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this weaken the psychologists' belief that the children have difficulty inferring their thoughts about phenomena?

    No. This is also irrelevant to the psychologists' interpretation. It doesn't matter if the psychologists who conducted the experiments with the young children intended to study something else. We don't have any reason to believe the original intent of their studies makes the evidence they acquired less trustworthy. Irrespective of their motives, they still gained evidence that suggests children had difficulty identifying their thoughts.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 14%
  2. B 5%
  3. C Credited 72%
  4. D 5%
  5. E 4%

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