SAT Reading & Writing · Cross-Text Connections
**Text 1** Laboratory studies measuring short-term outcomes have found that participants who played a violent video game showed small…
**Text 1**
Laboratory studies measuring short-term outcomes have found that participants who played a violent video game showed small increases in aggressive thoughts or behavior immediately afterward compared to participants who played a non-violent game.
**Text 2**
Researchers reviewing this body of research have raised concerns about how aggression is measured in these studies, noted the possibility of publication bias favoring studies with positive findings, and emphasized that the link between these laboratory measures and serious real-world violence remains weak and contested.
Based on the texts, which statement best characterizes the relationship between the findings in Text 1 and Text 2?
Laboratory studies measuring short-term outcomes have found that participants who played a violent video game showed small increases in aggressive thoughts or behavior immediately afterward compared to participants who played a non-violent game.
**Text 2**
Researchers reviewing this body of research have raised concerns about how aggression is measured in these studies, noted the possibility of publication bias favoring studies with positive findings, and emphasized that the link between these laboratory measures and serious real-world violence remains weak and contested.
Based on the texts, which statement best characterizes the relationship between the findings in Text 1 and Text 2?
Answer and explanation
Answer: B: Text 2 does not necessarily dispute the specific short-term laboratory findings in Text 1, but it raises concerns about how much those findings can tell us about serious real-world violence.
Text 2's concerns are specifically about measurement, publication bias, and the leap to real-world violence, not necessarily a denial that the laboratory effect exists at all. B captures this precise, narrower critique. A overstates Text 2 into a complete denial it doesn't make. C misreads two clearly connected discussions as unrelated. D overstates Text 2 in the opposite direction, asserting a strong causal claim that Text 2 specifically says remains weak and contested.
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