SAT Reading & Writing · Cross-Text Connections
**Text 1** Psychologists have described a pattern in which people who perform poorly on a task tend to overestimate their relative ability…
**Text 1**
Psychologists have described a pattern in which people who perform poorly on a task tend to overestimate their relative ability compared to others, a finding often attributed to a specific deficit in the ability to accurately judge one's own performance.
**Text 2**
Statisticians studying the same data patterns have argued that a combination of statistical regression toward the mean and general noise in how people estimate their own abilities can produce a similar-looking pattern in the data, without requiring any special psychological deficit in self-judgment.
Based on the texts, which statement best captures the relationship between the two explanations?
Psychologists have described a pattern in which people who perform poorly on a task tend to overestimate their relative ability compared to others, a finding often attributed to a specific deficit in the ability to accurately judge one's own performance.
**Text 2**
Statisticians studying the same data patterns have argued that a combination of statistical regression toward the mean and general noise in how people estimate their own abilities can produce a similar-looking pattern in the data, without requiring any special psychological deficit in self-judgment.
Based on the texts, which statement best captures the relationship between the two explanations?
Answer and explanation
Answer: B: The two texts agree on the basic pattern observed in the data but offer competing explanations for what causes that pattern to appear.
Text 2 doesn't dispute that the described pattern shows up in data; it offers an alternative statistical explanation for why that pattern appears, without requiring the specific psychological deficit Text 1 proposes. B captures this shared observation paired with competing explanations precisely. A misstates Text 2, which addresses causation, not the pattern's existence. C incorrectly treats clearly connected analyses as unrelated. D contradicts Text 2, which specifically argues against needing a special deficit to explain the pattern.
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