Question 36·200 Super-Hard SAT Reading Questions·Information and Ideas
To examine how limited resources shape judgments of unconventional research, sociologists Mirela Park and Jonah Eze analyzed applications submitted to scientific grant panels. They assigned each application a disciplinary-distance score reflecting how different the concepts and methods of the combined fields were. Applications with greater distance were generally rated as more novel, but on panels with relatively high funding rates, distance was not associated with overall scores. Nor, among funded applications, was greater distance associated with lower eventual citation impact. However, panelists' independent scores diverged more as distance increased, a pattern prior research links to lower confidence in estimating quality. Park and Eze also noted that low funding rates intensify pressure to justify every award, leading evaluators to favor choices whose merits they can assess confidently. Park and Eze would therefore predict that _____
Which choice most logically completes the text?
For a difficult inference question, classify each finding by what it concerns and identify any conditional relationship. Establish the baseline, determine what changes under the condition named in the answer choices, and reject options that overextend a finding about novelty or eventual outcomes into an unsupported claim about evaluators' scores.
Hints
Separate the findings
Distinguish among ratings of novelty, overall panel scores, evaluators' confidence, and eventual citation impact. The prediction concerns only one of these stages.
Use the baseline
Consider what the lack of a distance-related scoring difference on relatively well-funded panels establishes before funding becomes scarcer.
Trace the scarcity mechanism
Determine which applications produce greater agreement among panelists, then consider how pressure to justify each award would affect the importance of that agreement.
Step-by-step Explanation
Establish the high-funding baseline
On panels with relatively high funding rates, disciplinary distance is not associated with overall scores. Although applications joining distant disciplines are rated as more novel, that novelty does not produce a systematic overall-score advantage in this condition.
Identify the confidence difference
Panelists' independent scores diverge more for applications with greater disciplinary distance. Because greater disagreement is linked to lower confidence in estimating quality, applications joining nearby disciplines are comparatively easier for panelists to assess with confidence.
Apply the effect of funding scarcity
Lower funding rates increase pressure to justify each award, so panelists should place more weight on evaluative confidence. The scoring balance should therefore shift away from harder-to-assess applications and increasingly favor applications joining nearby disciplines.
Separate evaluation from eventual impact
The comparable citation impact of funded applications shows that greater disciplinary distance does not necessarily indicate worse research. However, the prediction concerns how panelists score applications under scarcity, not how the funded research eventually performs.