Reading Comprehension

PT140 · S4 · P3 · Q18 The Origins of Superior Performance

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In certain fields of human endeavor, such as music, chess, and some athletic activities, the performance of the best practitioners is so outstanding, so superior even to the performance of other highly experienced individuals in the field, that some people believe some notion of innate talent must be invoked to account for this highest level of performance.

Topic

Superior performance (the super elite athletes, performers, specialists, in any given field).

Frameworks

Answer a Question What causes elite performance? Some people - innate talent Author -- Nah, mostly acquired skills

Old / New Old - we used to assume elite performance came from innate talent. New - now we think it comes from mostly acquired skills

Challenge a Position Position -- some notion of innate talent must be invoked to explain why elite performers are so much better than their peers. Author's Challenge -- no, the real difference-makers are motivation and practice. The elite performers had all the necessary traits and just added 10+ years of intense training.

Main Point

Superior performance is probably less about innate talent and more about skills / physiological changes acquired through long, intense training, for which motivation may be the best predictor.

P1 - Intro to Topic, Position 1 (Old)

This paragraph introduces the concept of superior performance, then introduces the Position that the passage will be challenging: innate talent must be part of what explains elite performance. This view is supplemented with some data.

P2 - Pivot to New, Evidence against Old

We get a doubleheader Purpose Pivot (but, yet, however, recently). This introduces the New position, which the Author will ultimately endorse: acquired skills are the bigger part of elite performance,

The author shows evidence against the idea that the magic abilities of elite performers are innate gifts, rather than specialized capacities gained through training.

P3 - Evidence Supporting New

Here the author talks about how all these elite performers had over a decade of intense training. The paragraph suggests that training brings about these superpowers. You can get the chess master's mind or you can get the fast twitch fibers of whatever sporting action you're perfecting, if you train hard for at least a decade. Only some traits like height are beyond the reach of being acquired through training.

P4 - Summary of Challenge

The author makes more explicit that she accepts this New explanation (elite performance comes mainly through acquired factors) as the truth and then she speculates on an implication of that view: if elite performance is mainly based on how much you practice, then motivation is really the special sauce of the masters.

18.

Which one of the following most accurately describes the author's main purpose in the passage?

to illustrate the ways in
Out of Scope: problematic cases
We are revising our model (or more properly, our understanding) of what causes superior performance. We used to think it was innate talent. Now we think it has more to do with sustained high-level training. According to this answer, most cases of superior performance were always explainable via the "innate talent" hypothesis, but there were some lingering problematic cases where they didn't have innate talent but did have superior performance. This revised theory (that says superior performance is more about sustained high-level training) can account for these problematic cases. But this passage wasn't saying, "we've revised the theory that innate talent causes superior performance" and then showing us examples of previously problematic cases that can now be explained. The passage was saying, "we're getting rid of that old theory that tried to explain most cases of superior performance as the result of innate talent, and we're replacing it with an understanding that most cases of superior performance are the result of sustained high-level training".
5% picked this
to argue that the evidence
Not the Same Evidence
This passage didn't say, "we ran the numbers again on this same evidence and arrived at a different conclusion". Rather, it said, "Until recently, however, little systematic research was done on the topic of superior performance .... Recent research in different domains suggests that ..." So the old theory was based on skimpy / little evidence. The new theory is based on brand new research.
16% picked this
Correct
to show how a body
Why this is right
This answer is an unlovable disaster that just ends up being our "best available". It's lovable in the very general sense that it conveys the right sense of "New research goes against old idea". But the details take a lot of "making peace" with. Is there "a body of recent research"? Yes, the 2nd paragraph's second sentence tells us that "recent research in a different domains of excellence suggests that superior performance arises predominantly from acquired complex skills and physiological adaptations, rather from innate abilities". Is this research finding "evidence that certain views based on earlier research are not applicable to a particular class of cases"? The view based on earlier research was that "superior performance is caused by innate abilities", so yes this old view and this body of recent research definitely conflict; one is not applicable to the other. What was the earlier research that the Old view was based on? There was data concerning prodigies and the apparent heritability of relevant traits. There were examples of superior musicians, most of whom were already standouts by age six (suggesting innate gifts). What is the "particular class of cases" that the body of new research is dealing with? Our 2nd sentence of the 2nd paragraph just says, "in different domains of excellence". That's vague, but it is a particular class of cases. The passage also uses some specific examples, such as accomplished athletes and accomplished chess players. Overall, the "particular class of cases" gives off this vibe that the author was saying, "Superior performance is caused by intense training, within these specific fields", whereas the passage felt more like it was saying, "In general, superior performance is caused by intense training". This seems to be a totally unnecessary flourish the test writer chose in order to make this answer less attractive.
Skill tested: Primary Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
65% picked this
to defend the author's new
Out of Scope: possible objections
The author just presents a new way of accounting for superior performance, based on recent research data. There aren't any "potential objections" raised and addressed.
5% picked this
to explain how a set
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: set of new postulations This answer sounds way too technical for the fuzzy, real-world science we're talking about here. We're just wondering if Tiger Woods has some special innate gifts or just got insanely better than everyone else because he trained harder and practiced more. We don't have any abstract, theoretical postulations. The closest we have to that is one solitary postulation: exceptional performance arises predominantly from acquired complex skills and physiological adaptations, rather than from innate abilities We definitely don't connect this one postulation to a long-standing body of evidence, since the Old theory was weakly supported ("little systematic research was done") and the New theory has recent research.
9% picked this

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