According to the passage, one's gaining greater expertise in a field appears to result in
Ryanon November 5, 2018
Choice C?
Apart from interpreting the passage and answer choices the same way the test writer does right off the bat, is there a technique or way to eliminate C from this question. And something more concrete to justify why mental shortcuts are ‘substantively different’ than calculations?
Thanks
2 Replies
Graceon November 18, 2018
I had the same question - thank you!
Jacobon November 18, 2018
This is a subtle point, and thus a difficult question. But notice exactly what answer C is saying: that one’s gaining greater expertise in a field appears to result in “an increased tendency to ignore one’s own errors in judgment within that field.â€
That is not quite what the passage is saying. The key can be found in lines 35-38. Those lines say, “we become so expert in making incredibly fast and introspective inferences about our thinking that we fail to notice that we are making them.â€
The key point is that expertise results in a failure to recognize that one is making inferences — not a tendency to ignore one’s own errors in judgment! Like I said, it is a subtle difference, but that is why answer C is incorrect.
