SAT Reading & Writing · Cross-Text Connections
**Text 1** An influential early experiment asked participants to hold a pen in their mouth in a way that activated muscles associated with…
Text 1
An influential early experiment asked participants to hold a pen in their mouth in a way that activated muscles associated with smiling, without being told to smile, and found that these participants rated cartoons as funnier than participants whose pen-holding position prevented that muscle activation.
Text 2
A large, pre-registered replication attempt using the same basic procedure failed to reproduce the original effect under the original conditions, though later, broader multi-lab research found smaller effects that appeared to depend on specific contextual factors not present in the initial study.
Which choice best describes the overall relationship between the findings in Text 1 and Text 2?
An influential early experiment asked participants to hold a pen in their mouth in a way that activated muscles associated with smiling, without being told to smile, and found that these participants rated cartoons as funnier than participants whose pen-holding position prevented that muscle activation.
Text 2
A large, pre-registered replication attempt using the same basic procedure failed to reproduce the original effect under the original conditions, though later, broader multi-lab research found smaller effects that appeared to depend on specific contextual factors not present in the initial study.
Which choice best describes the overall relationship between the findings in Text 1 and Text 2?
Answer and explanation
Answer: B: The straightforward original effect did not replicate as originally described, but subsequent broader research suggests a smaller, more conditional version of the effect may still exist under…
The passage's arc, failed direct replication followed by evidence of a smaller, context-dependent effect, is precisely what B names, avoiding both an overstated rejection and an overstated confirmation. A overstates the replication failure into total impossibility, which the later multi-lab findings contradict. C misreads the connected studies as unrelated, when Text 2 explicitly describes replication attempts of Text 1's procedure. D contradicts Text 2, which specifically reports the original effect did not replicate as originally described.
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