#20 - Global Reference, Main Point

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[eronquillo12]

Hi- apologies for all the questions, I was hoping to get a better understanding of this passage as a whole. I had a hard time following it, and it could have been a result of the timed pressure. But I don't quite understand why B is the main point. I chose E. The word "misleading" in B threw me off.

[nicholaspavic]

Hi eronquillo,

Let's talk about the passage a little bit and your analysis because that may be what's causing some of the problems that you are experiencing. The meat of the author's main point can be found in the introductory paragraph and starting at line 6, its comparison of brain scans for medical purposes (which are of "indubitable" value according to the author) and the use of brain scans for neuroimaging in psychology (a "fundamentally different enterprise). This is scathing for this author's tone. It's also one of the reasons why Answer Choice (B) works. Other reasons why (B) works is that in line 13 he calls the modular theory a "premise" and immediately starts questioning it and the entire second to last paragraph is spent showing how the MRI is a misleading approach.

But let's discuss Answer Option (E) too and why it does not really work. It's the phrase "illustrated effectively." There is no way that this author thinks it is illustrated effectively. Others may take it as effective but this author definitely does not. That's what he just spent the whole passage attacking after all.

Thanks for the great question and I hope this helps.

[sari.lerner16]

I am still not seeing how B is correct. He seems to agree with the modular theory of mind.

[Ben DiFabbio]

I am still not seeing how B is correct. He seems to agree with the modular theory of mind.

Hey Sari,

I don't think it's a proper interpretation of the passage to say that the author agrees with the modular theory. The author takes a stance against the theory around line 15: "It may in fact be that neither mental activity, nor the physical processes that constitute it, are decomposable into independent modules."

After that, the author spends a considerable amount of time working through critiques of the theory, which the author also appears to agree with. Consider around line 50, for example: "One immediately obvious (but usually unremarked) problem is that this method obscures the fact that the entire brain is active in both conditions."

What I think might be leading you astray is that the author calls the theory "attractive" in the final line of the passage. However, calling a theory attractive is not the same thing as calling it correct. In fact, by calling the theory attractive in the context of its illustration by what the author considers a flawed technique (the subtractive method), the author is coming out strongly against the theory.

I'm sure we can think of an explanation for a phenomenon that might be attractive or alluring but ultimately wrong. For instance: the moon is yellowish and full of holes because it's made of Swiss cheese.

Hope that helps!

Ben

[appletree]

Hello!
I was a bit hesitant to pick B.
Lines 1-9 seems to say that medical and psychological applications are both for depicting mental activity. It's just that the use of it in medical application is fine but the use of it in psychological application is questionable.
So B was a bit weird for me because it made a blanket statement that using brain scans for mental activity is questionable--but the author seems to think it is ok in some contexts (medical).
Could someone please explain why my reasoning doesn't make B incorrect? Thank you!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi appletree,

I think I understand the confusion here. I will go ahead and preface this with a note that I know pretty much nothing about this topic, aside from what I've read here in the passage. So I can't explain to you anything beyond what the passage states.

According to our passage, there are two potentially different ways to use brain scans. The first is the medical use---it scans for physical differences in the brain, like tumors, that can be visualized using x-ray like technology. The author has no problem with this use. The second use is for attempting imaging of mental activity. Here's where we run into a problem, both in the passage, and described in answer choice (B). Answer choice (B) is limited to the mental activity attempts. It is correct because it doesn't address the physical aspect of the imaging.

Hope that helps!