#9 - As regards memory, the brain responds best to repeated

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[Tw07]

I got this question correct, but I am curious in general is there a recommended approach to fill in the blank questions? I have been trying to go back and find it in the lessons, but have seemed to overlook/miss it. Thanks in advance!

[Claire Horan]

Hi Tw07,

For fill-in-the-blank questions, you can use the same methods you would normally use for the underlying question type. This question is a Must Be True, so you can prephrase. The stimulus states that memory is aided by repeated patterns and that music's repeated patterns is what helps us remember information put to music. We are also told that jokes and music have something in common, that they both elicit emotion. Then we are presented with a difference, though, that jokes are not easy to remember. We prephrase by looking to the stimulus for the reason we were told music was helpful to memory: the patterns. If jokes lack the same patterns as music, that would explain the difference. That leads us to the correct answer.

Fill-in-the-blank questions have an added bonus, though. If you are having trouble with the prephrase, reading the stimulus with each answer choice in the blank can help you identify contenders that flow naturally.

Good luck!

[cinder.ella]

Hello,

With this question, I was between C/E and ended up choosing E because I thought we couldn't know that "jokes work .. by ... breaking [the patterns]"

As I was reviewing, I realized we also can't know for sure that "people can hold in short-term memory only a few chunks of unpatterned information at a time" as described in E. Is that why E is incorrect?

Thank you

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

That's exactly what's wrong with answer choice (E), cinderella! We know what the brain responds BEST to but we don't know it's the only thing that it responds to. However, with answer choice (C), we can find this answer choice by recognizing the structure of the argument. The brain responds BEST to repeated patterns. The argument continues by giving an example---we can learn facts/information set to music because it follows known patterns. The author continues by stating that we would expect jokes could also be learned by setting them to music. But that isn't the case.

The question asks us to consider WHY that wouldn't be the case. Why aren't jokes able to be learned when set to music? If the key to music is that it's patterned, the key to jokes must be that they break those patterns--that's why the music doesn't work.

Hope that helps!