Common sense suggests that we know our own thoughts directly, but that we infer the thoughts of other people. ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ██████████████ ███ ███████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ███
Standard assumption ·We know our own thoughts directly
Elaborate on analogy ·Expertise makes us think we see relationships directly, when we're really just making very quick inferences
Example: chess experts' ability to "see" whether a position is weak or strong. Experts make inferences so fast they don't notice they're making them. And we are experts in our own thinking, so we don't notice our own inferences.
Mistaken implication of psychologists' perspective ·Might seem that psychologists are saying we infer our own thoughts based on observations of our own behavior
The phrase "perilously close" indicates the author thinks that it would be dangerous for someone to think we infer thoughts based on our own behavior.
Clarification ·Psychologists say we infer thoughts based on internal feelings and emotions
So, we're not making inferences based on seeing our own external behavior.
Passage Style
Phenomenon-hypothesis
Single position
11.
Which one of the following ██ ████ ███████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██████████ █████ █████ █████████
Question Type
RC analogy
The author presents the psychologists’ explanation for why we fail to notice our own inferences about our own thoughts in P2. The psychologists believe that we are so expert and fast at inferring our own thoughts that we think we perceive our own thoughts directly. Let’s look for an answer that involves someone becoming so expert at a thing that they don’t notice some aspect of that thing.
This is most analogous. This anthropologist is so familiar with their own culture — just as people are so expert at making inferences — that they don’t notice certain workings of their culture — just as people don’t notice the indirect way they make inferences. You might not think it’s a perfect analogy, but there’s no better answer.
Children becoming more comfortable with formal abstraction is arguably analogous to becoming more expert at something. But in order for (C) to be correct, we need the children to then fail to notice something about formal abstraction. (C) is missing that component.
This doesn’t contain an element analogous to becoming more expert at something.
Difficulty
86% of people who answer get this correct
This is a slightly challenging question.
It is significantly easier than other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%129
141
75%153
Analysis
RC analogy
Phenomenon-hypothesis
Science
Single position
Answer Popularity
PopularityAvg. score
a
86%
163
b
3%
155
c
7%
157
d
3%
153
e
2%
158
Question history
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