Question 139·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Craft and Structure

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Text 1

After Riverton replaced a twelve-screen permit application with a redesigned seven-screen version, municipal records showed that the median time from beginning an application to submitting it had increased. Yet in usability sessions, participants completed comparable applications more quickly with the redesigned version. Researchers suggested that the sessions may have failed to capture how people use the application without supervision.

Text 2

A later field trial randomly assigned permit applicants to the original or redesigned version and grouped their projects by complexity. Within every complexity group, applicants who submitted using the redesigned version did so more quickly. However, among applicants with highly complex projects—which generally required the most time under either version—the redesign sharply reduced the proportion who abandoned the application before submitting it.

How do the findings in Text 2 most directly bear on the researchers' suggestion in Text 1?

For cross-text questions involving apparently conflicting results, identify exactly what population and statistic each text describes. Then check whether the second text introduces a grouping or selection effect that can reconcile the results without accepting the first text's proposed explanation.

Hints

Hint 1
Compare the measured groups
Consider which applicants are included in a statistic based only on applications that reach submission.
Hint 2
Distinguish grouped and overall results
Ask whether an outcome that holds within every project-complexity group must also appear in the same way when all submitted applications are combined.

Step-by-step

Step 1
Identify the proposed explanation
The researchers attribute the conflicting results to the setting: they suggest that the supervised usability sessions may not represent independent use of the application.
Step 2
Separate within-group results from the overall statistic
In Text 2, the redesign reduces submission time within every project-complexity group. It also prevents more applicants with highly complex, generally time-consuming projects from abandoning their applications.
Step 3
Account for the changed group of submitted applications
Abandoned applications are not included in a median calculated from submitted applications. If the redesign enables more complex applications to reach submission, those comparatively long completion times enter the data and can raise the overall median even though applicants complete the redesigned version faster within each complexity group. Text 2 therefore supplies an alternative to the supervision-based explanation.

Lessons that teach this

SAT Reading: Craft and StructureAdvancedCoreText 1 and Text 2: how would one author respond?

Question 139·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Craft and Structure

Text 1

Text 2

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