V11-30

Official Solution:


In an attempt to prove the effect of computer gaming on 'cognitive flexibility' – ability to quickly adapt and switch between different tasks, and to execute different job-functions simultaneously – researchers recruited two groups of volunteers. One group played a real-time strategy game, which requires frequent decision making and high organising skills, while the other a life-simulation game, which does not require much memory or many tactics. Those who played the strategy game performed better in cognitive flexibility tasks than those who played life simulation game.

Which of the following can be conclusively determined from the above argument:


A. If a person played computer games for a long period, he would have high cognitive flexibility.
B. Playing strategy games generally improves the cognitive flexibility of a person more than playing life simulation games does.
C. If a person does not have high cognitive flexibility, he has not played strategy games for a considerable period of time.
D. Some people speculate that certain kinds of entertainment may influence multi-tasking ability.
E. Computer gaming has an influence on how people execute their tasks.


(A) The experiment attempts to prove that strategy games, not all computer games, have a positive effect on cognitive flexibility.

(B) Unless it is established that the group that played strategy games did not already perform better than the group playing simulation game, this conclusion cannot be drawn.

(C). This statement is equivalent to that if a person played strategy games for a considerable period of time, he would have high cognitive flexibility.

Unless the cognitive flexibility test performance of the group before the experiment is not known, this statement cannot be concluded. Moreover, even it is established that playing strategy games improves cognitive flexibility, it does not necessarily mean that improvement would be enough for any person to reach high level of cognitive flexibility; it could so happen that by playing strategy games a person with very low cognitive flexibility improved to a low or medium level.

(D) Correct The researchers attempted to prove the effect of computer gaming, a kind of entertainment, on the ability to execute different job-functions simultaneously, multi-tasking. Since the researchers attempted to prove, it can be concluded that they speculated a relation between computer gaming and multi-tasking

(E) Unless the test result before the experiment is compared with that after and other possible causes of improvement are ruled out, this statement cannot be concluded.


Answer: D