Children’s Thinking — IELTS Reading Answers

is cited as famous in the field of psychology.

“One of the most eminent of psychologists, Clark Hull, claimed that the essence of reasoning lies in the putting together of two 'behaviour segments' in some novel way, never actually performed before, so as to reach a goal”

Clark Hull is called one of the most eminent psychologists, meaning he is famous in the field of psychology.

demonstrated that the two-stage experiment involving button-pressing and inserting a marble into a hole poses problems for certain adults as well as children.

“The stages consisted merely of pressing the correct one of two buttons to get a marble; and of inserting the marble into a small hole to release the toy The mystery at first appears to deepen when we learn, from another psychologist, Michael Cole, and his colleagues,”

Michael Cole and colleagues found that adults in an African culture apparently could not do the Kendlers' button-and-marble task either.

devised an experiment that investigated deductive reasoning without the use of any marbles.

“Instead of the button-pressing machine, Cole used a locked box and two differently coloured match-boxes, one of which contained a key that would open the box”

Cole replaced the button-pressing machine with a locked box and two matchboxes, one containing a key, so no marbles were used.

appears to have proved that a change in the apparatus dramatically improves the performance of children of certain ages.

“The two modifications together produced a jump in success rates from 30 per cent to 90 per cent for five-year-olds and from 35 per cent to 72.5 per cent for four-year-olds”

Hewson's two modifications raised success rates from 30 to 90 per cent for five-year-olds and 35 to 72.5 per cent for four-year-olds.

used a machine to measure inductive reasoning that replaced button-pressing with drawer-opening.

“First, he replaced the button-pressing mechanism in the side panels by drawers in these panels which the child could open and shut”

Hewson replaced the button-pressing mechanism with drawers in the side panels that the child could open and shut.

experimented with things that the subjects might have been expected to encounter in everyday life, rather than with a machine.

“Instead of the button-pressing machine, Cole used a locked box and two differently coloured match-boxes, one of which contained a key that would open the box. Notice that there are still two behaviour segments - 'open the right match-box to get the key' and 'use the key to open the box' - so the task seems formally to...”

Cole used a locked box and coloured matchboxes, familiar meaningful objects the subject might meet in everyday life rather than a strange machine.

compared the performance of five-year-olds with college students, using the same apparatus with both sets of subjects.

“When these are changed in ways which do not at all affect the inferential nature of the problem, then five-year-old children solve the problem as well as college students did in the Kendlers' own experiments”

The Kendlers' own experiments had used college students; once the apparatus changed, five-year-olds solved the problem as well as those students.

is cited as having demonstrated that earlier experiments into children's ability to reason deductively may have led to the wrong conclusions.

“Recent work by Simon Hewson is of great interest here for it shows that, for young children, too, the difficulty lies not in the inferential processes which the task demands, but in certain perplexing features of the apparatus and the procedure”

Hewson showed young children's difficulty lies not in inference but in perplexing features of the apparatus and procedure, implying earlier conclusions were wrong.

Howard and Tracey Kendler studied under Clark Hull.

“Two followers of Clark Hull, Howard and Tracey Kendler, devised a test for children that was explicitly based on Clark Hull's principles”

The Kendlers are called followers of Clark Hull, but the passage never says they studied under him.

The Kendlers trained their subjects separately in the two stages of their experiment, but not in how to integrate the two actions.

“The children were trained on each stage separately They did not press the button to get the marble and then proceed without further help to use the marble to get the toy”

The children were trained on each stage separately and did not press the button then proceed without help to use the marble.

Michael Cole and his colleagues demonstrated that adult performance on inductive reasoning tasks depends on features of the apparatus and procedure.

“But it lessens, on the other hand, when we learn that a task was devised which was strictly analogous to the Kendlers' one but much easier for the African males to handle.”

Cole devised a task strictly analogous to the Kendlers' but much easier for African males to handle, showing performance depends on apparatus and procedure.

All Hewson's experiments used marbles of the same size.

“How is he to know that any other marble of similar size will do just as well? Yet he must assume that if he is to solve the problem”

The text refers to any other marble of similar size doing just as well, so the marbles used were all the same size.

Hewson's modifications resulted in a higher success rate for children of all ages.

“The two modifications together produced a jump in success rates from 30 per cent to 90 per cent for five-year-olds and from 35 per cent to 72.5 per cent for four-year-olds.”

For three-year-olds there was no improvement but rather a slight drop in performance, so not all ages benefited.