Question 17·Medium·Cross-Text Connections
Text 1
Many popular science outlets insist that eight continuous hours of overnight sleep are indispensable for turning freshly acquired information into long-term memories. According to this view, the brain moves data from short-term to long-term storage only during an extended stretch of nocturnal rest; brief naps or fragmented sleep supposedly leave most learning "unfinished."
Text 2
Neuroscientist Yuki Sasaki and colleagues monitored college students with magnetoencephalography while the students either took a 90-minute afternoon nap or remained awake. Nappers whose sleep included both slow-wave and REM stages improved their word-pair recall almost as much as peers who had slept a full eight hours the previous night. By contrast, naps lacking REM produced little benefit. Sasaki concludes, "It is the architecture, not the duration, of sleep that matters most for memory."
Question
How does Text 2 relate to the claim made in Text 1 about the amount of sleep necessary for memory consolidation?
For cross-text connection questions, first state in your own words the main claim or attitude of Text 1, then do the same for Text 2. Decide if Text 2 mainly supports, qualifies, or challenges Text 1. Once you know that overall relationship, scan the answer choices looking for that same type of relationship, and eliminate any option that adds extra claims (like attacking methods or generalizing to all tasks) that you do not see explicitly stated in Text 2. This comparison-first approach is faster and more reliable than jumping straight into the choices.
Hints
Clarify Text 1’s position
Focus on the words "indispensable" and "only" in Text 1. What exactly is Text 1 claiming about eight hours of sleep and the usefulness of naps?
Identify the key finding in Text 2
What happened to students who took a 90-minute nap that included both slow-wave and REM sleep, compared with those who had slept a full eight hours the previous night?
Decide if the texts agree or disagree
Ask yourself: does Text 2 support the idea that only a full night’s sleep works, or does it offer a different picture of how much and what kind of sleep helps memory?
Eliminate answer choices that go too far
Check whether Text 2 ever says earlier research was wrong because of bad tools, or that all memory tasks need the same sleep time. If not, you can rule out those choices.
Step-by-step Explanation
Pinpoint Text 1’s main claim about sleep and memory
Read Text 1 and identify the key idea: it says that eight continuous hours of overnight sleep are indispensable for turning new information into long-term memories. It also says the brain moves information to long-term storage only during an extended stretch of nocturnal rest, and that brief naps leave learning "unfinished." This means Text 1 is very strict: naps are not enough; you must have a long overnight sleep.
Summarize what Text 2 actually shows
Now look at the experiment in Text 2. Some students take a 90-minute nap; others stay awake. Those whose naps include both slow-wave and REM sleep improve word-pair recall almost as much as students who slept a full eight hours. Naps without REM help very little. The researcher concludes that the architecture (which stages of sleep), not the duration, matters most for memory.
Compare the messages of Text 1 and Text 2
Put the two claims side by side:
- Text 1: Only eight continuous hours of overnight sleep are enough for proper memory consolidation; naps are basically ineffective.
- Text 2: A 90-minute nap with the right structure (slow-wave + REM) can give almost the same memory benefit as a full eight hours; what matters most is how you sleep, not how long you sleep.
So Text 2 does not support Text 1; instead, it shows a counterexample to Text 1’s strict requirement for a full night of sleep.
Match this relationship to the answer choices
Now match this relationship to the options:
- It clearly does not reinforce Text 1, because it shows naps can work.
- It does not say all memory tasks need the same sleep time.
- It does not claim earlier findings were invalid due to bad tools.
Instead, Text 2 presents experimental evidence that a well-structured 90-minute nap can also support memory consolidation, which directly challenges Text 1’s claim that only eight continuous hours overnight can do this. Therefore, the correct answer is:
D) It challenges Text 1 by presenting evidence that substantial memory consolidation can also occur during a well-structured 90-minute nap.