When interviewing witnesses to a crime, police interviewers seek to maximize the amount of information that a cooperating eyewitness can give them so that they can generate leads to follow, confirm or disconfirm . ███████ ███ ██ ██████ ███
Intro to Topic ·Police interviews of eyewitnesses
Goal is to maximize the amount of true information from eyewitnesses. How do police do this?
Cognitive interview is complex. Too hard to learn. Too hard to implement. So it's great if it's executed properly but it's too hard to execute properly.
1. requires no special training (better than cognitive interview); 2. can be applied to everyone (better than hypnosis); 3. has positive effect on true recall with no increase in false recall (better than hypnosis).
Evidence of Success ·"Close your eyes" is the best method
Improve true recall to similar degree as cognitive interview. Everyone can use this technique, unlike hypnosis. Doesn't require any specialized training, unlike cognitive interview.
Passage Style
Problem-analysis
Single position
8.
The author refers to "alibis" ██████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████████ ██ █████ ██
Question Type
Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Structure
The author mentions “alibis” as part of describing the kind of information police interviewers seek to gain from witnesses.
a
highlight a positive ████████████ ████ ██ █████████████ ████████
The author doesn’t make any point about psychological research in P1.
“Suspects” is not correct. The author discusses obtaining information from witnesses.
60%
c
point to a ███ ██ █████ ██ █████████ █████████ █████████ █████ ██ ███
This best captures the purpose, which is to describe the kind of information police interviewers seek to gain from witnesses. Confirming or disconfirming alibis is one way interviewers might try to use an interview procedure.
40%
d
contrast the concerns ██ ██████ ████████ ████ █████ ██ █████████████
The author doesn’t discuss different concerns of officers and psychologists in P1.
0%
e
illustrate the complexity ██ ███ █████████ █████████
The author doesn’t mention the complexity of the cognitivie interview until the middle of P2.
0%
Difficulty
40% of people who answer get this correct
This is a very difficult question.
It is significantly harder than the average question in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%149
168
75%180
Analysis
Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Stems that ask us to describe the purpose of a word, phrase, or idea given the context in which it appears. Answers often use abstract, structural language.
An umbrella tag marking questions that test our understanding of the passage's overall structure (e.g. Main point, Purpose of paragraph, Meaning in context, Describe organization).
Passages that present a particular problem and then discuss the implications of that problem. They also often explore one or more solutions to that problem (although they don’t have to).