Questions 19 to 20 refer to the passage below. For each question, select one answer
choice, unless the instructions state otherwise.Though Locke’s tabula rasa—the theory that all behavior is learned—
was long ago debunked by experimental psychologists, only recently
have scientists found neuroscientific evidence supporting the
position of instinctive thoughts and behaviors. Fundamental to these
investigations has been the use of fMRI, which enables scientists
to “peer” into the brain of subjects and identify the brain regions
activated by certain tasks. In direct contradiction of the Enlightenment
myth of a tabula rasa, recent evidence shows that pre-verbal infants’
brains demonstrate much of the same neural activity during social
interactions as do the brains of fully mature adults. One of the most
illuminating studies in this field measured the activation in infants’
brains when they observed an actor grasp a toy. Scientists found that
infants who grasped a toy after observing someone else grasp a toy
exhibited substantial activity in the motor regions of their brains,
whereas infants who observed the same actor but subsequently did
not grasp the toy did not reveal such activity. These findings strongly
support a hard-wired, instinctive capacity for empathy in infants, one
that mirrors the same capacity in adult humans.- The primary purpose of the passage is to
A suggest a difference between two groups of infants
B explain a scientific methodology
C offer evidence to support a position
D contradict a widely held belief
E contrast different approaches to studying a phenomenon - Select the sentence in the passage that highlights a scientific finding’s
significance.
S T O P.
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