Recent innovations in standardized testing programs include real-time data analytics that track student response patterns throughout the assessment pr...
GMAT Craft and Structure : (Structure) Questions
Recent innovations in standardized testing programs include real-time data analytics that track student response patterns throughout the assessment process, leading education researcher Sarah Kim to argue that such monitoring may ______ authentic performance by increasing test anxiety and self-consciousness among students.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
validate
enhance
compromise
quantify
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Part A: Create Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| "Recent innovations in standardized testing programs include real-time data analytics that track student response patterns throughout the assessment process," |
|
| "leading education researcher Sarah Kim to argue that such monitoring may" |
|
| [MISSING WORD/PHRASE] |
|
| "authentic performance by increasing test anxiety and self-consciousness among students." |
|
Part B: Provide Passage Architecture & Core Elements
Main Point: Education researcher Sarah Kim believes that real-time monitoring technology in testing may negatively impact student performance by making students more anxious and self-conscious.
Argument Flow: The passage introduces a new testing innovation (real-time analytics), then presents a researcher's concerns about its effects. Kim's argument connects the monitoring technology to student psychology (increased anxiety and self-consciousness), suggesting this psychological impact affects authentic performance in some way that we need to determine.
Step 2: Interpret the Question Precisely
This is a fill-in-the-blank question asking us to choose the best logical connector. The answer must create the right relationship between what comes before and after the blank.
Step 3: Prethink the Answer
- Looking at our analysis, we have monitoring technology that increases test anxiety and self-consciousness
- The question is asking what effect this has on authentic performance
- The logical relationship here is clear: if students become more anxious and self-conscious because they know they're being monitored in real-time, this would negatively impact their ability to perform authentically
- So the right answer should indicate that the monitoring harms, weakens, or negatively affects authentic performance
validate
✗ Incorrect
- Validate means to confirm or prove the worth of something
- This would suggest monitoring helps confirm authentic performance, which contradicts the logic
enhance
✗ Incorrect
- Enhance means to improve or make better
- This would mean anxiety and self-consciousness improve authentic performance, which contradicts basic understanding of how anxiety affects performance
compromise
✓ Correct
- Compromise means to weaken, undermine, or negatively affect
- This creates the logical flow: monitoring → anxiety/self-consciousness → weakened authentic performance
- Matches our prethinking perfectly
quantify
✗ Incorrect
- Quantify means to measure or express as a number
- This doesn't fit the logical relationship - anxiety doesn't help measure performance