Researchers recently found that disruptions to an enjoyable experience, like a short series of advertisements during a television show, often...
GMAT Information and Ideas : (Ideas) Questions
Researchers recently found that disruptions to an enjoyable experience, like a short series of advertisements during a television show, often increase viewers' reported enjoyment. Suspecting that disruptions to an unpleasant experience would have the opposite effect, the researchers had participants listen to construction noise for 30 minutes and anticipated that those whose listening experience was frequently interrupted with short breaks of silence would thus ______
Which choice most logically completes the text?
find the disruptions more irritating as time went on.
rate the listening experience as more negative than those whose listening experience was uninterrupted.
rate the experience of listening to construction noise as lasting for less time than it actually lasted.
perceive the volume of the construction noise as growing softer over time.
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Part A: Create Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| 'Researchers recently found that disruptions to an enjoyable experience, like a short series of advertisements during a television show, often increase viewers' reported enjoyment.' |
|
| 'Suspecting that disruptions to an unpleasant experience would have the opposite effect,' |
|
| 'the researchers had participants listen to construction noise for 30 minutes and anticipated that those whose listening experience was frequently interrupted with short breaks of silence would thus' |
|
Part B: Provide Passage Architecture & Core Elements
Visual Structure Map:
- Research Finding: Disruptions to enjoyable experiences increase reported enjoyment
- Hypothesis: Disruptions to unpleasant experiences have opposite effect
- Experiment: Construction noise with silent interruptions
- Predicted Result: Missing
Main Point: Researchers tested whether disruptions to unpleasant experiences have the opposite effect of disruptions to enjoyable experiences.
Argument Flow: The passage begins with a research finding that disruptions increase enjoyment of pleasant experiences. Based on this finding, researchers hypothesized that disruptions would have the opposite effect on unpleasant experiences. They designed an experiment using construction noise with silent interruptions to test this hypothesis, but the predicted result is missing.
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
- The key logic is straightforward: if disruptions make enjoyable experiences MORE enjoyable, then disruptions should make unpleasant experiences MORE unpleasant
- Since the researchers are testing with an unpleasant experience (construction noise), they should anticipate that people whose unpleasant experience was disrupted with silent breaks would rate it as worse than those who had the uninterrupted unpleasant experience
find the disruptions more irritating as time went on.
✗ Incorrect
- This suggests the disruptions themselves become more irritating over time
- This misses the main point about how disruptions affect the overall rating of the construction noise experience
rate the listening experience as more negative than those whose listening experience was uninterrupted.
✓ Correct
- This directly follows the logical pattern
- If disruptions make pleasant experiences more pleasant, then disruptions should make unpleasant experiences more unpleasant
rate the experience of listening to construction noise as lasting for less time than it actually lasted.
✗ Incorrect
- This is about time perception, not about rating the experience as more or less negative
- The passage focuses on enjoyment ratings, not time perception
perceive the volume of the construction noise as growing softer over time.
✗ Incorrect
- This suggests a change in perceived volume
- The passage is about how interruptions affect overall experience ratings, not volume perception