PrepTest 114, Section 4, Question 6
In any field, experience is required for a(87 more words not shown)
The argument requires the assumption(6 more words not shown)
- AComputers can show(16 more words not shown)
- BThe knowledge of(16 more words not shown)
- CHuman experts rely(16 more words not shown)
- DFuture advances in(14 more words not shown)
- EHuman experts rely(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why couldn't a computer draw on those past situations too?
I can follow the account of human expertise. After encountering many situations, a person has examples to draw on when something new arises. The response can become immediate and intuitive rather than a slow application of memorized rules.
But the author then uses that account to rule out equally good computer systems. The final sentence says expert knowledge isn't stored in a human brain as rules and facts. Does that establish that a computer can't represent the knowledge in some usable form? A difference in how knowledge is held isn't automatically a difference in what a system can accomplish.
What we’re looking for
The required assumption should address that gap. I'd look for a reason the computer cannot have access to the kind of knowledge that makes the human expert effective. Describing the human advantage isn't enough unless the argument also explains why the computer can't obtain it.
Working the answers
- A
Originality isn't the stated standard for expertise. A computer could give an appropriate response using something its designer supplied, even if that response weren't original. A limit on originality doesn't establish that the system can't match a human expert's performance. We need the connection to the knowledge and response described in the passage.
- BCorrect
This rules out adequately translating the human expert's knowledge into a form the computer can store. The author needs that restriction to use the described human knowledge as a reason computers cannot be as good.
Suppose that knowledge could be rendered adequately into computer-storable information. Then pointing out that the human brain doesn't hold it as rules and facts wouldn't by itself show a limitation on the computer. B closes that gap. It doesn't claim computers can do nothing that human brains do; it concerns the expert knowledge on which this argument relies.
- C
This concerns how the information used by human experts can be expressed. It supplies no reason that computers cannot make use of it. In fact, expressing the relevant information as rules and facts wouldn't help establish the particular obstacle the author needs. The comparison between human and computer expertise remains unresolved.
- D
A computer could become able to sort much more information while still lacking the kind of expert knowledge the author describes. Conversely, merely limiting the quantity it can sort doesn't establish the claimed difference in expertise. The argument concerns the nature of the knowledge and response, not a requirement that information-processing capacity never increase.
- E
This concerns intuition while people build their collection of model situations. The passage emphasizes the intuitive responses those situations later allow. Even if E were true, we would still need to know why a computer couldn't match the resulting expertise. More description of the human process doesn't supply that missing limitation on computers.
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