PrepTest 150, Section 4, Question 9
Common sense suggests that we know our own(462 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(24 more words not shown)
- ASome children who(17 more words not shown)
- BExperiments with older(13 more words not shown)
- CThe limited language(15 more words not shown)
- DMost young children(15 more words not shown)
- EThe psychologists who(21 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Our objection during the read-through is useful here: knowing a thought and successfully describing it aren't necessarily the same thing. The children describe the phenomena correctly but give poor descriptions of their own thoughts. The psychologists interpret that as difficulty identifying those thoughts.
What we’re looking for
What if the children know what they're thinking but struggle to put it into words? That would preserve the experimental observation while weakening the interpretation. We don't have to claim the experimenters recorded the children's answers incorrectly.
Working the answers
- A
The original result says young children tend to misdescribe their thoughts; it doesn't say every child does worse than every adult. Some overlap between the groups wouldn't by itself undermine the tendency or show that the psychologists misinterpreted it.
- B
Older children doing as well as adults doesn't explain why younger children struggled. It can fit the idea that the ability to identify one's thoughts develops with experience. This doesn't supply a competing explanation for the younger children's performance.
- CCorrect
Limited language skills provide exactly that competing explanation. A child might have direct knowledge of a thought yet be unable to communicate it accurately. The misdescription would then be evidence of a reporting difficulty, not necessarily evidence that awareness of the thought depends on an inference.
- D
Children don't need to know the philosophical difference between direct and indirect access in order to have either kind of access. Their ability to name that distinction doesn't explain the experimental result.
- E
The researchers' interest in other issues doesn't by itself make this interpretation wrong. We need a reason the children's answers fail to support the claim, not merely a different description of what interested the researchers.
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