CHILDREN’S THINKING - IELTS Reading Answers & Explanations
From Cambridge IELTS 02 Academic Reading Test 1 · Part 3 · Questions 28–40
Reading Passage
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 28 - 40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 below.
CHILDREN'S THINKING
One of the most eminent of psychologists, Clark Hull, claimed that the essence of reasoning lies in the putting together of two 'behaviour segments' in some novel way, never actually performed before, so as to reach a goal.
Two followers of Clark Hull, Howard and Tracey Kendler, devised a test for children that was explicitly based on Clark Hull's principles. The children were given the task of learning to operate a machine so as to get a toy. In order to succeed they had to go through a two-stage sequence. The children were trained on each stage separately. The stages consisted merely of pressing the correct one of two buttons to get a marble; and of inserting the marble into a small hole to release the toy.
The Kendlers found that the children could learn the separate bits readily enough. Given the task of getting a marble by pressing the button they could get the marble; given the task of getting a toy when a marble was handed to them, they could use the marble. (All they had to do was put it in a hole.) But they did not for the most part 'integrate', to use the Kendlers' terminology. They did not press the button to get the marble and then proceed without further help to use the marble to get the toy. So the Kendlers concluded that they were incapable of deductive reasoning.
The mystery at first appears to deepen when we learn, from another psychologist, Michael Cole, and his colleagues, that adults in an African culture apparently cannot do the Kendlers' task either. But it lessens, on the other hand, when we learn that a task was devised which was strictly analogous to the Kendlers' one but much easier for the African males to handle.
Instead of the button-pressing machine, Cole used a locked box and two differently coloured match-boxes, one of which contained a key that would open the box. Notice that there are still two behaviour segments - 'open the right match-box to get the key' and 'use the key to open the box' - so the task seems formally to be the same. But psychologically it is quite different. Now the subject is dealing not with a strange machine but with familiar meaningful objects; and it is clear to him what he is meant to do. It then turns out that the difficulty of 'integration' is greatly reduced.
Recent work by Simon Hewson is of great interest here for it shows that, for young children, too, the difficulty lies not in the inferential processes which the task demands, but in certain perplexing features of the apparatus and the procedure. When these are changed in ways which do not at all affect the inferential nature of the problem, then five-year-old children solve the problem as well as college students did in the Kendlers' own experiments.
Hewson made two crucial changes. First, he replaced the button-pressing mechanism in the side panels by drawers in these panels which the child could open and shut. This took away the mystery from the first stage of training. Then he helped the child to understand that there was no 'magic' about the specific marble which, during the second stage of training, the experimenter handed to him so that he he could pop it in the hole and get the reward. A child understands nothing, after all, about how a marble put into a hole can open a little door. How is he to know that any other marble of similar size will do just as well? Yet he must assume that if he is to solve the problem. Hewson made the functional equivalence of different marbles clear by playing a 'swapping game' with the children.
The two modifications together produced a jump in success rates from 30 per cent to 90 per cent for five-year-olds and from 35 per cent to 72.5 per cent for four-year-olds. For three-year-olds, for reasons that are still in need of clarification, no improvement - rather a slight drop in performance - resulted from the change.
We may conclude, then that children experience very real difficulty when faced with the Kendler apparatus; but this difficulty cannot be taken as proof that they are incapable of deductive reasoning.
Questions
Questions 28–35 Matching Features
Classify the following descriptions as referring to
Write the appropriate letters in boxes 28 - 35 on your answer sheet.
CH. Clark Hull
HTK. Howard and Tracey Kendler
MC. Michael Cole and colleagues
SH. Simon Hewson
Questions 36–40 Yes / No / Not Given
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 36 - 40 on you answer sheet write
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage
Answers & Explanations Summary
| # | Answer | Evidence | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q28 | CH | One of the most eminent of psychologists, Clark Hull, claimed that the essence of reasoning lies in the putting together of two 'behaviour segments' in some novel way, never actually performed before, so as to reach a goal | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage starts by saying that Clark Hull is a very well-known and important expert in the study of how people think and behave. Answer Explanation: The answer CH refers to Clark Hull. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is Clark Hull because the text begins by describing him as one of the most "eminent" of psychologists. The word "eminent" means someone who is famous, respected, and important in their field of study. |
| Q29 | MC | The stages consisted merely of pressing the correct one of two buttons to get a marble; and of inserting the marble into a small hole to release the toy The mystery at first appears to deepen when we learn, from another psychologist, Michael Cole, and his colleagues, that adults in an African culture apparently cannot do the Kendlers' task either |
Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage describes the two steps of the experiment: first getting a marble by pressing buttons, and then putting that marble into a hole. It then states that Michael Cole and his team found that adults in another culture were also unable to complete this specific test. Answer Explanation: The answer MC refers to Michael Cole and his colleagues. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is Michael Cole and his colleagues because the text explains that they tested adults from an African culture using the same two-part experiment that Howard and Tracey Kendler used for children. This experiment involved pressing buttons to get a marble and then using that marble to get a toy. Cole’s team found that even these adults had difficulty finishing the task with the strange marble machine, showing that the problem was not just for children. |
| Q30 | MC | Instead of the button-pressing machine, Cole used a locked box and two differently coloured match-boxes, one of which contained a key that would open the box | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage describes Michael Cole’s experiment, which used a box and a key instead of the machine that used marbles. Answer Explanation: The answer is Michael Cole and his colleagues, because they created a test to look at how people think that did not involve using marbles. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is MC because the passage explains that while the Kendlers and Simon Hewson used marbles in their experiments, Michael Cole used different items. Instead of the marble-based machine, Cole used a 'locked box', 'match-boxes', and a 'key'. This shows that his study for deductive reasoning did not use marbles at all. |
| Q31 | SH | The two modifications together produced a jump in success rates from 30 per cent to 90 per cent for five-year-olds and from 35 per cent to 72.5 per cent for four-year-olds | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that when the test was changed in two ways, five-year-old children and four-year-old children were much more successful than they were before. Answer Explanation: The answer is SH, which stands for Simon Hewson. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is SH because Simon Hewson changed the tools and the way children did the test to see if they could do better. He replaced the buttons with drawers and explained the marbles better. Because of these changes, children who were four and five years old became much better at the test. The text shows a big increase in success, which means their performance improved a lot for those specific ages. |
| Q32 | SH | First, he replaced the button-pressing mechanism in the side panels by drawers in these panels which the child could open and shut | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that Simon Hewson's first major change was to take away the buttons on the machine and use drawers instead, because drawers were easier for a child to use and understand. Answer Explanation: The answer SH refers to Simon Hewson, a researcher who modified a psychology experiment to better understand how children think. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is SH because the passage describes how Simon Hewson made changes to the apparatus (the machine) used in previous studies. The text specifically mentions that he replaced the buttons, which were confusing, with drawers that children could easily open. This action directly matches the description in the question. |
| Q33 | MC | Instead of the button-pressing machine, Cole used a locked box and two differently coloured match-boxes, one of which contained a key that would open the box. Notice that there are still two behaviour segments - 'open the right match-box to get the key' and 'use the key to open the box' - so the task seems formally to be the same. But psychologically it is quite different. Now the subject is dealing not with a strange machine but with familiar meaningful objects; and it is clear to him what he is meant to do | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that Michael Cole used match-boxes and a locked box instead of a machine with buttons. These objects are described as "familiar," meaning they are things people already know and use in their everyday lives. Because the objects were common and easy to understand, the people being tested knew exactly what they were supposed to do. Answer Explanation: The answer MC refers to the psychologist Michael Cole and his team of researchers. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is MC because the passage describes how Michael Cole and his colleagues modified a thinking test. Instead of using a "strange machine" with buttons, they used "familiar meaningful objects" like a locked box and match-boxes. These are items that people would naturally see and use in their daily lives. By using these everyday objects instead of a machine, the researchers made it easier for the subjects to understand and complete the task. |
| Q34 | HTK | When these are changed in ways which do not at all affect the inferential nature of the problem, then five-year-old children solve the problem as well as college students did in the Kendlers' own experiments | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage says that when the test was made easier, five-year-old children got the same high scores that college students got when they did the Kendlers' original test. This shows that the Kendlers (HTK) tested both small children and college-level students with their machine. Answer Explanation: The answer is HTK (Howard and Tracey Kendler). These researchers tested both small children (five-year-olds) and adult students (from college) using the same marble machine. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is HTK because the passage explains that college students took part in the 'Kendlers' own experiments.' Since the Kendlers also designed the original marble machine to test children, and Paragraph 8 mentions how 'five-year-olds' performed on that original set-up (showing a 30 percent success rate), it is clear that they tested both groups using the same equipment. |
| Q35 | SH | Recent work by Simon Hewson is of great interest here for it shows that, for young children, too, the difficulty lies not in the inferential processes which the task demands, but in certain perplexing features of the apparatus and the procedure | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that Simon Hewson's research showed that children struggled with the confusing tools and steps of the test, rather than struggling with the actual logic or thinking required to solve it. Answer Explanation: The answer SH refers to Simon Hewson, who showed through his research that older tests on children's thinking may have given the wrong results. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is Simon Hewson because he updated the experiment designed by the Kendlers. While the Kendlers originally thought children could not use logic (deductive reasoning) based on their machine experiment, Hewson discovered that the problem was not the children's thinking, but the machine itself. By changing the machine to more familiar objects like drawers, he showed that children could indeed reason correctly. This proved that the earlier conclusions about children's lack of reasoning were likely wrong because they were based on a confusing test. |
| Q36 | NOT GIVEN | Two followers of Clark Hull, Howard and Tracey Kendler, devised a test for children that was explicitly based on Clark Hull's principles | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that the Kendlers were fans of Clark Hull's work and used his ideas for their experiment, but it never mentions if he was their teacher. Answer Explanation: The answer is NOT GIVEN because the passage does not provide enough information to know if Howard and Tracey Kendler were students of Clark Hull. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is NOT GIVEN because the text only describes Howard and Tracey Kendler as "followers" of Clark Hull who used his "principles" (main ideas or rules) to create a test. Being a "follower" of someone's work often means you agree with their theories, but it does not necessarily mean you were their student or "studied under" them in a school or university setting. Since the passage doesn't clarify their personal relationship or education, we cannot say if the statement is true or false. |
| Q37 | YES | The children were trained on each stage separately They did not press the button to get the marble and then proceed without further help to use the marble to get the toy |
Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage first states that the children were taught the two parts of the test one by one. It then explains that once they finished the single tasks, they could not complete the whole process start-to-finish without someone helping them again, which means they had not been taught how to link the steps. Answer Explanation: The answer is YES because the passage confirms the children were taught each part of the task on its own, but were not taught how to connect those parts together. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is YES because the passage states that the children were taught the two different steps "separately," which means one at a time. After this training, the children could do each step alone but did not "integrate" or join the actions into a single sequence on their own. Since they needed "further help" to do the whole task, it shows that the researchers only trained them on individual steps and not on the connection between them. |
| Q38 | YES | But it lessens, on the other hand, when we learn that a task was devised which was strictly analogous to the Kendlers' one but much easier for the African males to handle. Instead of the button-pressing machine, Cole used a locked box and two differently coloured match-boxes, one of which contained a key that would open the box | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage states that Michael Cole created a new version of the logic test that was similar to the original but much easier for the men to understand. By replacing a confusing machine with simple, everyday items like boxes and keys, the men were able to handle the task much better. Answer Explanation: The answer YES means that Michael Cole's research showed that how well adults perform on logic tests is affected by the specific tools and steps used in the experiment. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is YES because the passage describes how Michael Cole changed the way the reasoning test was done. Instead of using a complicated button-pressing machine (the 'apparatus'), he used familiar objects like match-boxes and keys. This change in the 'procedure' and 'apparatus' made the task much easier for the adults to complete successfully. The passage notes that although the logic required was the same, using familiar items 'greatly reduced' the difficulty, proving that performance depended on how the test was set up. |
| Q39 | YES | How is he to know that any other marble of similar size will do just as well? Yet he must assume that if he is to solve the problem | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage explains that to solve the puzzle, a child has to understand that any other marble of the same size will work in the machine just like the first one did. Answer Explanation: The answer is YES because the passage indicates that the marbles used in Hewson's study were of the same size for the experiment to work. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is YES because the passage describes a specific requirement for the experiment: the marbles must be of a "similar size" to work in the machine's hole. To help children understand that any marble would work (not just a special one), Hewson used a "swapping game" with different marbles. For these marbles to be interchangeable in the same machine, they had to be the same size. The mention of "similar size" in the context of what a child must assume confirms that this was a standard feature of the marbles used. |
| Q40 | NO | The two modifications together produced a jump in success rates from 30 per cent to 90 per cent for five-year-olds and from 35 per cent to 72.5 per cent for four-year-olds. For three-year-olds, for reasons that are still in need of clarification, no improvement - rather a slight drop in performance - resulted from the change | Excerpt/Passage Explanation: The passage shows that while the changes helped four and five-year-old children do much better, the three-year-olds did not improve and actually did a little worse than before. Answer Explanation: The answer is NO because the statement is false according to the passage. Reason For Correctness: The correct answer is NO because the statement claims that children of 'all ages' had a 'higher success rate' after the changes, but the passage says this did not happen for three-year-olds. While the success rates for four-year-olds and five-year-olds increased significantly, the youngest group showed 'no improvement' and actually experienced a 'slight drop in performance.' |