Q11 - A part of the brain called the amygdala

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Inference (most supported)

Stimulus Breakdown:
The amygdala is involved in sensing fear.
People with UW disease have a damaged amygdala and hence don't usually feel fear.
But they, like normal people, experience fear if they have a breath that's super high in CO2.

Answer Anticipation:
We're looking to combine facts, using Conditional / Causal / Quantitative / Comparative language. The tension caused by a but/yet/however is usually where the inference lies. We want to balance the ideas before it with the one after it ("Straddle the Pivot", to use the most regrettable teaching term ever)

We know that amygdala has a causal influence on fear, but that people without amygdalae can still experience a certain type of fear (breath too high in CO2). So maybe we could infer something like "the amygdala is not the only part of the brain/body that is involved in sensing fear", or "fears based on breathing / suffocating do not originate in the amygdala".

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Extreme fear is the only intense response we heard about, so we have no support for the idea that there are other responses.

(B) Sensing fear is the only function we heard about, so we have no support for the idea that there are the functions.

(C) UW is the only amygdala killing disease we heard about, so we have no support for the idea that there are other diseases.

(D) The amygdala is the only part of the brain affected by UW we heard about, so we have no support for the idea that other parts of the brain are affected

(E) YES, this was in line with our prediction. Since we know that people with out an amygdala can still experience fear, it can't be the only part of the brain/body that is involved in sensing fear.

Takeaway/Pattern: This isn't a must be true inference, since maybe the other source of fear is "the lungs / the vocal tract / etc", but it is very strongly supported, especially if you add in your common sense that all emotions come via the brain in some way. True to typical form, if we see a "but/yet/however" on a Most Strongly Supported, we should think about what sort of safely worded takeaway we can say by "Straddling the Pivot" (balancing both sides of the pivot).

#officialexplanation

[Annie Levin]

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