A question about how researchers would respond to an underlined claim tests whether you can connect their findings to that specific claim. Read the question to identify who answers whom, then put the underlined claim in a few words. Ask what the findings show about the claim, then describe their response: support it, reject it, accept it only in part, or apply it to a new case. The reason must come from the responding text, not from what sounds reasonable.
Hints
- Hint 1
The question targets the underlined sentence, not the whole of Text 1. Find what that sentence says true awe requires.
- Hint 2
In Text 2, look for what changed after the awe clips. How do those changes relate to the underlined sentence's description of true awe?
- Hint 3
Use the redwood-grove follow-up to compare the two ways of experiencing nature. Does it support the underlined claim's limit, or give the researchers a reason to question that limit?
Step-by-step
Test the claim against the studies
Step 1Identify the target
Start with the researchers in Text 2, since the question asks for their response to the underlined claim. What does that claim rule out? It says true awe cannot be produced by images on screens and defines it as quieting self-absorption. The target is whether screens can reduce someone's focus on themselves.
- Step 2
Connect the results to true awe
What changed after the awe clips? Viewers reported lower self-focus and gave more in a subsequent anonymous-donation task than the neutral-clip group. Lower self-focus matches Text 1's idea of quieting self-absorption, because both mean paying less attention to oneself. The donations also show a change in behavior, so the researchers have more than a report about how participants felt.
- Step 3
Use the in-person comparison
The follow-up adds a comparison with being outdoors: students in the redwood grove showed similar changes to those who watched the videos. What would the researchers say? The researchers would reject the requirement of physical presence, since the same kinds of effects appeared even without being outdoors.
- Step 4
Match the reason and its limits
The phrase overly narrow view of awe challenges the claim's strict limit on how awe can arise. The phrase self-diminishing effects refers to lower self-focus, which matches Text 1's definition of true awe. The word can doesn't go beyond what the studies show: it doesn't claim every video works or that both experiences feel alike in every way. Choice C.