IMAT 2016 Q5 [Conclusion | Identifying Objects]

Past Papers Solutions Archives
,
1

In 1688 the Irish philosopher William Molyneux asked whether a blind person who regained their vision could recognise by sight an object they had previously only known by touch. Richard Held and Pawan Sinha of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology attempted to answer this question in an experiment with five children in India who had just had successful surgery which gave them their sight for the first time. Within 48 hours of the operation the children were asked to feel a toy block without looking at it. They were then shown two blocks, one of which they had touched. They identified the orginal block just over half of the time and this is only a little better than guesswork. Recognising touched objects by sight alone improved within days.

Which one of the following can be drawn as a conclusion of the above passage?

A. Using children in experiments such as the one described above is morally wrong.

B. Identifying an object by sight alone which had been touched but not seen previously is learned behaviour and not innate.

C. Identifying an object by sight alone which had been touched but not seen previously is innate behaviour and not learned.

D. Identifying an object by sight alone which had been touched but not seen previously is something which adults do better than children.

E. Identifying an object by sight alone which had been touched but not seen previously is something which children do better than adults.

2

Summary of Steps to Solve Drawing Conclusion Type Questions:

  1. Read the Question (Every question)
  2. Go through the text and underline evidence
  3. Read the answer and eliminate the outliers
    • (easiest to eliminate contradictory conclusions)
  1. Using the underlined evidence and examples, prove each conclusion. Ask yourself “is this another piece of evidence? Or is this proved and strengthened by what’s in the text?”
  2. Remember to ignore bias and disregard answers that may be true in the real world, but are not supported in the text.

Firstly, there is some challenging language that makes not known to some of you. ‘Innate’ means that it is natural and not learned, something you are born with. This is a key thing we need to understand before we chose the answer. Let’s dive into the answers:

A Using children in experiments such as the one described above is morally wrong.

This should be an easy option to eliminate because it is not relevant. The morality of these experiments is not referenced, therefore A is incorrect.

B Identifying an object by sight alone which had been touched but not seen previously is learned behaviour and not innate.

This conclusion needs us to prove one thing over another. In this case, it can be either or but not both. The text says that just over half of the time the children were able to guess the block, and then says this is barely better than guesswork. This means that the skill is not developed. We take the original probability which is 50/50 since they have to make a choice between 2 things, and then we compare this expected prediction to the actual result. Since the predicted and actual are the same, it must mean that there is no special relationship here that shows us that guessing from tough is innate. It then goes on to say that these children improved this ability in the following days, which shows that they can learn this skill. Therefore B is the answer because the text proves the skill is learned and not innate.

C Identifying an object by sight alone which had been touched but not seen previously is innate behaviour and not learned.

This is wrong because it is the opposite of what we said in B. The children showed no particular benefit initially but were able to prove the skill over time. This disproves the innate ability to do this action. Therefore C is incorrect.

D Identifying an object by sight alone which had been touched but not seen previously is something which adults do better than children.

There is no mention or comparison with adults in this case. This could be for several reasons, ex. Maybe this surgery is only given to children. Since there is no mention of adults, we cannot make any conclusions relating to them. The author does not support any conclusion we come up with now since they take no opinions and provide no evidence on adults. Therefore D is incorrect.

E Identifying an object by sight alone which had been touched but not seen previously is something which children do better than adults.

This answer is incorrect for the same reasons as D.

FINAL NOTE: Notice that we can easily eliminate A, D, and E from this question. Then we are left with two very similar answers with just a simple differentiation: we need to find out if this study proves the ability is innate or not, and this is pretty clearly stated in the text.

1 Like