A study question with a follow-up tests whether you can draw a conclusion from several results. Read what leads into the blank, then name what each group showed on each task. Ask what the follow-up changed, because changing one feature and removing a gap can reveal what mattered in the original test. Predict the smallest conclusion that explains all the results without adding an untested claim. Wrong choices often explain one result while leaving another unexplained.
Hints
- Hint 1
Compare the two listening tasks. For each, write which filtering setting led to better performance.
- Hint 2
Look at what the added time words changed in the follow-up. What happened to the difference between the filtering groups?
- Hint 3
Connect the acoustic analysis to the follow-up. How could the pitch changes and the added time words each matter when listeners try to understand event order?
Step-by-step
Compare the tasks and explain the follow-up
Step 1Separate the listening tasks
Intensive filtering yielded more accurate isolated-word transcriptions, yet for questions about event order, those hearing the moderately filtered recordings performed better. What must the conclusion explain? The better setting changed with the listening task, even though both settings filtered the same recordings.
- Step 2
Find what removed the gap
What happened when researchers inserted explicit connectives such as “earlier” and “afterward”? The filtering groups then performed equally well on event-sequence questions. Since the excerpts were otherwise matched, explicit time links removed the comprehension gap. Those words state how events relate in time, so let's look for other cues to those links.
- Step 3
Explain the role of pitch
The acoustic analysis found that intensive filtering attenuated pitch changes that often coincided with clause boundaries, meaning it weakened rises and falls in the voice between parts of a sentence. Why does that matter for event order? The findings fit together if these vocal cues help listeners connect events, while added time words supply those links when the cues are weakened. The gap is about following event links, not identifying separate words.
- Step 4
Judge what the evaluation misses
Archivists select noise-reduction settings by testing how accurately listeners transcribe isolated words. Does that score measure everything a story needs? An isolated-word test can overrate a setting for a whole narrative, because it doesn't measure how listeners follow event links. The choice saying evaluations may overstate intensive filtering’s suitability names this limited risk for narratives that use vocal cues. Choice B.