PrepTest 150, Section 4, Question 11
Common sense suggests that we know our own(462 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(24 more words not shown)
- AAn anthropologist cannot(20 more words not shown)
- BScience is limited(14 more words not shown)
- CAs they develop,(18 more words not shown)
- DJudges are barred(14 more words not shown)
- EA ship's commander(24 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The relevant explanation isn't simply that people fail to notice something. It's that people become so practiced at a process that they stop noticing the process. The chess expert's judgment seems immediate; similarly, our own inferential work becomes so familiar and fast that we take the resulting awareness for granted.
What we’re looking for
Look for that connection between familiarity and a failure to recognize what is happening. A different reason for overlooking something wouldn't match just because it also involves a mental limitation.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The anthropologist is so familiar with his own culture that he takes its workings for granted and cannot describe them accurately. That matches the key relationship: familiarity makes important features of one's own experience hard to notice. The subject matter differs, but the reason for the failure corresponds.
- B
Science depending on human reasoning describes a limitation arising from the tools used to study the mind. It doesn't say familiarity makes researchers stop noticing an inferential process. The answer needs that mechanism, not merely a problem with studying ourselves.
- C
Becoming comfortable with abstraction makes children vulnerable to failing to learn from concrete experience. That's a different consequence of development. It doesn't describe a familiar process becoming so automatic that people fail to recognize they are performing it.
- D
A family connection creates a potential conflict of interest. That is a reason to question a judge's impartiality, not a case of expertise or familiarity hiding how a mental process works.
- E
The commander delegates because she lacks time to handle everything. She can be fully aware of both the duties and her decision to delegate. Being too busy isn't the same as failing to notice a familiar process.
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