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Information and IdeasVery hardInferring a metric's failure as a proxy

Information and Ideas practice question

The developers of the language app Lexio rank study schedules by "session accuracy": the percentage of items a user answers correctly during a review session. In a trial, one group of learners reviewed the same set of 20 Finnish words for five minutes every day; a second group reviewed that set for 35 minutes once a week. The weekly group's session accuracy was consistently the higher of the two, since its answers came soon after the words had been presented. On a test given at the close of the eight-week trial, the two groups scored identically; on an unannounced test six weeks later, the daily group recalled nearly twice as many words. These results indicate that ______

Which choice most logically completes the text?

  1. A. session accuracy can rate a study schedule highly even when that schedule leaves learners with weaker retention over the long run.Correct
  2. B. the daily group outperformed the weekly group on the later test because it devoted more total time to reviewing the words.
  3. C. learners who switch from weekly to daily review sessions can expect their session accuracy to rise.
  4. D. the test administered at the end of the eight-week trial did not accurately measure vocabulary knowledge.

Answer: A. session accuracy can rate a study schedule highly even when that schedule leaves learners with weaker retention over the long run.

The metric favored the weekly schedule, yet the weekly schedule produced markedly worse recall six weeks later—so session accuracy ranked as better the schedule that in fact taught less durably. B rests on an arithmetic misreading: five minutes daily is 35 minutes per week, exactly the weekly group's total, so study time was equal and cannot explain the gap. C reverses the reported result; the daily group's accuracy was the lower of the two. D offers an unsupported alternative explanation—identical end-of-trial scores are consistent with genuinely equal knowledge at that moment, and the text gives no evidence the test was faulty.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. the daily group outperformed the weekly group on the later test because it devoted more total time to reviewing the words.
Check the arithmetic: five minutes a day for seven days is 35 minutes, exactly what the weekly group studied — total time was equal, so it can't explain the difference in recall.
C. learners who switch from weekly to daily review sessions can expect their session accuracy to rise.
This reverses the result reported in the text: the weekly group had the higher session accuracy, so switching to daily review would lower it, not raise it.
D. the test administered at the end of the eight-week trial did not accurately measure vocabulary knowledge.
Identical scores at the end of eight weeks are consistent with the groups genuinely knowing the same amount at that point; the text gives no evidence the test itself was flawed.

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