PrepTest 129, Section 1, Question 18
Asked by researchers to sort objects by shape,(79 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- AToddlers unable to(19 more words not shown)
- BOnly adolescents and(10 more words not shown)
- CCertain kinds of(11 more words not shown)
- DThe maturing of(15 more words not shown)
- ESkill at adapting(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The toddlers can sort by shape. When asked to switch to color, they mostly keep sorting by shape. Is switching the problem, or is sorting by color the problem?
I'd be interested in reversing the order. What happens if the children start with colors and then move to shapes? That would help distinguish difficulty following a new rule from difficulty with the particular color task. We shouldn't decide from this description alone that the children simply don't understand colors.
The researchers offer a developmental explanation: the prefrontal cortex is important for adapting to new rules, and it is still developing in toddlers. That could explain their difficulty changing approaches. Since development continues into adolescence, we might expect the ability to adapt to improve as development proceeds, though the passage gives no precise schedule.
What we’re looking for
Now the question asks what the information most supports, rather than asking us to attack the researchers' explanation. So keep the stated connection between development and adapting in view, and look for a modest inference it supports. Our earlier question about the study's design isn't itself an answer to this task.
Working the answers
- A
We don't have a comparison of prefrontal development between same-age toddlers who can and cannot sort by color. Also, difficulty switching from shape to color isn't necessarily an inability to sort by color in the first place. A would need both a comparison and an account of the children's color-sorting ability that the passage doesn't provide.
- B
Continuing development into adolescence doesn't mean children below that age cannot adapt to any new rule. They might manage an easier change, or already have enough development for some kinds of adaptation. B turns a developmental limitation into a complete age restriction.
- CCorrect
This takes a different route from the developmental prediction I had in mind. A child who keeps sorting by shape after being told to sort by color might seem to be refusing to cooperate. But if insufficient development makes changing rules difficult, the behavior needn't be intentional defiance.
The unfamiliar words 'willfully disobedient' still fit the idea: inability to adapt can explain apparent noncompliance. C carefully says that certain behavior may not be willful. We don't have to establish that no toddler ever deliberately disobeys, or that every failure in the study had exactly the same cause.
- D
The passage doesn't compare the effects of brain development with the effects of upbringing. Both could matter. Calling the cortex essential to adaptation doesn't rank its contribution above all the ways a child's upbringing could affect that ability.
- E
A relationship isn't necessarily a roughly proportional one. Proportionality would require a relatively consistent relationship between changes in development and changes in adaptive skill. The information leaves open uneven gains or a large improvement after a developmental threshold. Those are possibilities illustrating what we haven't been told, not additional claims about how children's brains actually develop.
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