Q6 - Beginners typically decide

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Inference (most supported)

Stimulus Breakdown:
CONTRAST: Beginners (primarily consider consequences) vs. Experts (primarily use pattern-recognition)
CAUSAL: Expert recognizes similar position before (pattern-recognition) --> recalls consequences of prior moves from that similar position --> decides on move.

Answer Anticipation:
Inference wants us to combine facts usually using Conditional / Causal / Contrast / Quantitative language. Look for "overlapping ideas" to find facts that could possibly be combined. The distinction between beginner and expert is about "considering consequences" vs. "pattern-recognition". But "considering consequences" comes up again in the description of how the expert does her pattern recognition. So it seems like they're setting us up for the idea that both beginners and experts are relying to some degree on considering consequences of moves. The distinction is basically that beginners are looking forward to possible future consequences. Experts are considering their body of experience, so they are considering consequences in the past.

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) New comparison/opposite: can't compare who is better at thinking through consequences, but common sense would suggest that experst are better.

(B) "should" is out of scope, because there's no value-laden ideas that are good/bad.

(C) Extreme: "only if". There is NO information about improving, and even the experts PRIMARILY use pattern recognition, so it's apparently possible to become an expert without using pattern recognition.

(D) Yes! This is combining the 2nd and 3rd sentence, but it's mainly just pulling from the last sentence. The 2nd sentence says "expert players" and then the 3rd sentence borrow that by saying "such a player does XYZ …" Since the expert's decision is based on information recalled, the expert player relies crucially on his/her memory.

(E) Extreme: ANY who does xyz WOULD improve?"

Takeaway/Pattern: This is a good example of an Inference question in which we're getting to the right answer most successfully by simply seeing a lack of support for the other four answers. The red flag wording I would have to justify in each case is "BETTER at considering consequences", "SHOULD use", "improve ONLY IF", "relies CRUCIALLY", and "ANYONE who does this WILL improve". We can support the "relies crucially" in (D) through a combination of the fact that experts PRIMARILY use pattern recognition, and the pattern recognition method is based on information recalled about prior occasions.

#officialexplanation

[esultana]

Hello,

I chose (D) when taking this prep test timed. However looking back I would like to confirm why (B) is incorrect.

Is (B) incorrect because a beginning chess player cannot correctly use pattern-recognition techniques because they do not yet have enough experience from which to draw upon for such techniques?

Also, I see how (D) is more strongly supported overall, but it did give me pause due to the jump in reasoning from "information recall" in the premise to "memory" in the answer. Thoughts?

Thank you!

[sumukh09]

Yeah you nailed it; and the jump in D is reasonable - in fact, I wouldn't even call it a jump.