#9 - The same task triggers different levels of awareness of

[Kdup]

Hi Poerscore,

This question gave me some trouble. I easily understood that the stimulus was saying that depending on how participate in tasks, they can trigger levels of awareness of one's environment. They used the example of math. Most math puzzles causes an increase in awareness . However, if you visualize these math puzzles, they cause a decrease in that awareness. I easily eliminated answer choices, B, C, D, and I was stuck between A and E. I thought to select answer choice E. But, I was frustrated with the answer choice. So, I just skipped it came back and selected E.

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Kdup,

It looks like you slightly misunderstood the stimulus. The speaker is not distinguishing between different types of math problems. Rather the speaker is making a distinction between how different types of people tackle the same task.

One type of person will solve a math problem by imagining numbers in their mind. Another type of person will, perhaps on the very same problem, solve the problem by taking frequent periods of rest at different stages of problem solving.

Since some people solve the problem by imagining numbers, and thus "experience a decrease in environmental awareness," we cannot agree with answer choice (E) that all math problems will increase awareness of surroundings. We can however say, as answer choice (A) does, that some people - those who solve problems by imagining numbers in their mind - will not have an increase in environmental awareness.