Self-study
Two randomly selected groups of 30 adults each were asked to write short stories on a particular topic. ███ █████ ███ ████ ████ ███ ████ ███████ █████ ██ ███████ ████ ███████ █████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ███ ████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ █████ ███ █████████ ██ █ ████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ █████ ██ ██████████ ██ ███ █████ ████ █████ ███ █████ █████ ███ ███████ █████████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ █████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████████████ █████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ █████ ██████
"Surprising" Phenomenon
In a writing competition, the group who knew they were competing for prizes wrote stories that ranked significantly lower on average than the group who didn’t know they were writing for prizes.
Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis explaining why writing quality was different between people who knew they were being judged for prizes and people who didn’t know they were being judged. That explanation must create a distinction between the groups which results in people writing worse when they’re aware they’re being judged for prizes.
4.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███████ ███ ███ ███████ ████████
a
The cash prizes ████ ███ █████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ █████ ██ ████ █ ███████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██ ████ ████████
This doesn't create a relevant distinction between the groups, it just tells us that neither was especially motivated by money. We still don't know why the offer of prizes caused worse performance.
b
People writing to ███ ██████ ████ █ ███████ ████ █████ ████████ ██ ███████ █████████████ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████████
So the group who knew they were writing for prizes wrote unoriginal stories, whereas the other group wrote with relatively more creativity since they didn’t know they were competing. This explains the difference between the groups.
c
Most adults show ██████ ███████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██ █ █████ █████████ ██ ███████ █████
We need to know why one group wrote worse stories than the other. This lacks any comparative aspect, because both groups' topics were suggested by someone else.
d
The team of ██████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ ██ ████ ██████████
This doesn't offer us any distinction between the groups. So what if the judges like realism? We have no reason to believe that either group was writing more realistically.
e
No one explained ███████ ██ ██████ █████ ████ █████████ █████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ █████ ████████
This doesn’t explain why one group wrote worse stories than the other. We need a comparative aspect in our answer, whereas this lack of explanation applies equally to both groups.