Zeida: Dr. Ladlow, a research psychologist, has convincingly demonstrated that his theory about the determinants of ...

gmaramara February 28, 2020

Answer Choice B

I got answer choice B correct through process of elimination, but I had a difficult time understanding triple negatives. "Psychologists who can derive consistently accurate predictions about how rats will perform in a maze from their theories cannot responsibly conclude that those theories cannot be disproved." "...cannot responsibly conclude that those theories cannot be disproved." Can you explain a technique to help when you stumble across questions such as these? It definitely slowed me down, so if there's a faster way to help please let me know! Thanks!

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SamA February 28, 2020

Hello @gmaramara,

You did the right thing by eliminating the other answer choices, but we still want to be able to check the last remaining answer. I agree, that sentence is tough. I am always trying to simplify complex statements by putting them in my own words. I also want to identify elements from the stimulus within the answer choice, even when they are worded differently.

Let's break this one down piece by piece.

"Psychologists who can derive consistently accurate predictions about how rats will perform in a maze from their theories..."
Who is this about? Dr. Ladlow.

"cannot responsibly conclude..."
What did Dr. Ladlow irresponsibly conclude? That his theory is "irrefutably correct." This means the same thing as "cannot be disproven."

irrefutably correct = cannot be disproven

They changed the wording here just to trick us, so I want to think about what part of the stimulus is being referred to.

I could change the last part to: "cannot responsibly conclude that his theory is irrefutably correct."

Again, this has the same meaning, and for me is easier to understand.