An experiment was done in which human subjects recognize a pattern wit

Responding to a pm:

It is a type of a strengthen question.

"Which hypotheses accounts for the findings?"
Another way of saying it is "which of the following, if true, supports the findings of the experiment" or "which of the following, if true, leads to the findings of the experiment"

If people who are better at abstract pattern recognition have more energy-efficient neural connections, they will expend lowest amount of energy.

First of all, I personally think this is more of a Paradox problem since we are trying to account for a surprising finding. We have to explain the surprising observation.

Secondly, I would like to add to leonidas's inputs. He has provided some great inputs, especially about Pre-thinking the answer. Prethinking is a very effective technique, however it requires conscious effort and involves a learning curve (for most). When you start prethinking, start with assumption questions. Moreover, do not worry about timing initially (for the first 15 questions) because you will take more time initially.

I do a 2 hr free session on Prethinking once a month. We have the recording of the last session on our portal. Register for a free account and then watch the help video below to access the recording of the session.

https://e-gmat.com/blogs/?p=851

Regards,

Rajat Sadana

Please delete the portion of answer choice (E) as shown above. This portion is not in OG 12 or 13. It is a strong contender after your addition. Thanks

When I answered this question, I thought Choice C is out of Scope as Choice C speaks about Neural Connections and passage is all about lowest expenditure of energy in neurons.
How these terms are related, and are we supposed to know the link between these two? Please help or suggest other way to reach to Official answer.

Thanks
H

Actually, it's something people are usually expected to know - there are neurons in the brain which are connected with each other and the brain functions by sending signals over these neural connections.
Don't worry if this was not intuitive - GMAT doesn't test your general awareness. This kind of disconnect will not be there in an actual GMAT question. Even if a question with some bias does get into the question bank, it is filtered out if they observe that people of that or higher level are striking out on it.

With all due respect to the experts Isn't this a must be true question?? IMO it in someway asks what hypotheses can best be drawn from the above stimulus, moreover it doesn't have a conclusion just plain facts...
Please correct me if I am wrong

It might seem so on first reading but actually it is not a 'must be true' question i.e. inference/conclusion question. In a 'must be true' question, given that the argument is true, you should be able to infer the answer choice without a doubt.
This question asks you for the hypothesis that best supports the findings of the experiment. Mind you, the given hypothesis cannot be inferred without a doubt from the argument. There could be many reasons for the low expenditure of energy. e.g. perhaps subjects who did well have practiced over the years and can easily 'see' how the puzzle pieces will fit and hence the need to expend less energy. We cannot say that they MUST have more energy-efficient neural connections.
But given this hypothesis, i.e. they have more energy-efficient neural connections, findings of the experiment make more sense.

Hi,

I'm trying to understand the question stem in this question more clearly. I've attempted this question before and I did land up with C as the answer. But when I was going through this question again, on second thoughts, I have a doubt on the interpretation of the question stem.

Which of the following hypotheses best accounts for the findings of the experiment?

As per my understanding, there's a hypotheses... then there's a study/experiment to prove the hypotheses and they have received surprising results.

Surprising result: Successful performance----> lowest expenditure of energy in neurons in the brain

Question: What can be the hypotheses possibly be?

The fact that the findings are surprising means that the hypotheses did not expect this result. In this case, the hypotheses must've been opposite or not similar to the result.

This is why I thought the answer must've been D which somewhat states the opposite.

While I understand that the answer is C because it explains why the results have taken place, I fail to understand how is this the answer to my question stem? i.e. The question stem doesn't seem to be asking why the result took place. It asks what the hypotheses could've been before the study.

It would be great if the experts could answer my doubt at the earliest... as I have my exam in 4 days!

Thanks.

That's not correct.

Question stem: Which of the following hypotheses best accounts for the findings of the experiment?

It clearly asks you for the hypothesis that best explains the actual results.


Also, the sequence may be: Hypothesis, then experiment, then surprise, then updated hypothesis.

They are asking you for the updated hypothesis since they say that which hypothesis best accounts for the findings - i.e. accounts for the actual results of the experiment.

Picked A, but could later easily understand why it was wrong.

(A) The neurons of the brain react less when a subject is trying to recognize patterns than when the subject is doing other kinds of reasoning. [ this is a general effect. then according to this energy expended by neurons in all subjects must be low, why especially in those who performed most successfully?? (from beatthegmat)

(C) People who are better at abstract pattern recognition have more energy-efficient neural connections I don't like this part, GMAT says, ok, you don't need a special knowledge, BUT wants us to know a bit more than stated in the argument.... So they can argument everything they want with such an instrument......

Situation-

Human subjects are asked to recognize a pattern and perform the task to complete the pattern.
But the results were surprising.Why ? Because the ones who succeeded in doing the task of pattern recognition and completion had the lowest energy expenditure of neurons in brain.

Evaluation-

We have to account for the surprising results of the experiment.
We have to provide a reason for the finding.Hence, we have to provide a strengthener option and also resolve the surprising finding.
We have to find the WHY?

POE-
(A) The neurons of the brain react less when a subject is trying to recognize patterns than when the subject is doing other kinds of reasoning.

This option applies to both performed well as well to those who did not perform well.

(B) Those who performed best in the experiment experienced more satisfaction when working with abstract patterns than did those who performed less well.

Satisfaction? what? What has satisfaction got to do with the finding?We have nothing that would confirm that more satisfaction results in less energy consumption.

(C) People who are better at abstract pattern recognition have more energy-efficient neural connections.

This information accounts for the finding.It gives additional information that the ones who do well on pattern recognition are blessed with efficient neural coonections.Efficient neural connections help save energy!


(D) The energy expenditure of the subjects brains increases when a design that completes the initially recognized pattern is determined.

We are interested in overall energy consumption.Also if this option were true than it would mean that the ones who are successful may have used more energy than the ones who could not recognize and complete the pattern.

(E) The task of completing a given design is more capably performed by athletes, whose energy expenditure is lower when they are at rest than is that of the general population.

The issue at hand is why the energy used by the successful ones is less than the energy used by the ones not successful.The athletes may have efficient neural networks BUT we want to know WHY do they have efficient networks.


Hope the above helps.

@GMATNINJA & @GMATNINJATWO, Could you help to explain why answer choice (A) is incorrect? This is tough to visualize.

ziyuen, we are asked to select the hypothesis that best accounts for the findings of the experiment. What were the findings?... that "the lowest expenditure of energy in neurons in the brain was found in those subjects who performed most successfully in the experiments". Thus, we need a hypothesis that helps explain why the expenditure of energy in neurons in the brain would be lower among subjects who performed the most successfully in the experiments than among subjects who were not as successful. Choice A implies that the neurons of any subject would expend less energy when the subject is trying to recognize patterns than when the subject is doing other kinds of reasoning, but this does not help explain the difference in energy expenditure between the most successful subjects and less successful subjects. Choice C, on the other hand, does explain the difference... people who are better at abstract pattern recognition would most likely be more successful in experiments that involve recognizing patterns within a matrix of abstract designs; thus, those who were more successful in the experiments would most likely have more energy-efficient neural connections, explaining the lower expenditure of energy in their neurons.

I hope that helps!

Dear GMATNinjaTwo

Can you help identify the type of this question? it is written as resolve the paradox but I do not think so.

Mo2men, the passage states that, "the results of the experiment were surprising." The question then asks us to identify a hypothesis that best accounts for those surprising results. The fact that the results are described as "surprising" suggests that we have a discrepancy... ie without any other information, one might reasonably guess that the subjects who performed most successfully in the experiments used the most neural energy (just like you might expect the most successful employees at a company to be those who work the hardest); however, surprisingly, the findings show that the opposite is true. Because of this apparent discrepancy, I think it is fair to categorize this as a "Resolve Paradox" question.

GMATNinja egmat VeritasPrepKarishma GMATNinjaTwo

Interesting discussions on question types and argument structure:

As per me: The structure is: FACT, CONCLUSION, EVIDENCE to support why author
is finding results as surprising.

Clearly this in NOT a RESOLVE PARADOX Q since no contrasting statements / hypothesis are present.

As per OG explanations too I need an answer stem that ACCOUNTS for the conclusion ie to strengthen it. Is my understanding correct?

This is a bit like a strengthen question. Although, in this case, we don't really have a "conclusion"; instead, we just have some "surprising" experiment findings to explain. As long as you understand the findings and why they are surprising, you are in a position to identify a hypothesis that accounts for those findings. Correctly labeling the question type shouldn't make much of a difference. As we see here, the question type is not always clear-cut.

Check out the Ultimate CR Guide for Beginners for a discussion of an approach that does not rely on question type.

Good luck!