PrepTest 150, Section 1, Question 9
When interviewing witnesses to a crime, police interviewers(453 more words not shown)
The author would be most(10 more words not shown)
- AThere is reason(20 more words not shown)
- BAn interviewer's success(20 more words not shown)
- CThough it suffers(22 more words not shown)
- DWhen interviewing witnesses,(20 more words not shown)
- EAn increase in(19 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
This is a broad agreement question, so I don't have one particular statement to predict. I'll keep the writer's actual comparisons in view: the cognitive interview can improve recall but is demanding; hypnosis is simpler but has reliability problems; eye closure appears to preserve the benefit without those drawbacks.
What we’re looking for
The answer still needs support. We can't turn those comparisons into a rule that simpler methods are always more reliable, or that one helpful component explains most of an interview's success.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The writer treats trained officers' departures from the specified procedures as part of the problem with the cognitive interview. That gives us reason to worry about effectiveness when the method isn't carried out as intended. We aren't claiming a study measured exactly how much effectiveness is lost; the answer only says there is reason for concern.
- B
Building rapport is one component of the package, alongside memory-retrieval techniques. Nothing establishes that rapport accounts for most of the valuable information obtained. A useful ingredient isn't necessarily the main cause of the result.
- C
Hypnosis is described as less complex than the cognitive interview. That's different from requiring essentially no training. The no-specialist-training advantage is stated for eye closure.
- D
The eye-closure studies report benefits for both visual and auditory material. Nothing here establishes a need to switch techniques depending on which kind of information police want.
- E
Complexity creates practical problems, but the cognitive interview still produces a recall benefit without a decline in overall accuracy. The writer doesn't establish a general rule that greater complexity usually reduces reliability.
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