Passage A Memory Revolution
A Memory Revolution
A high school senior logs on to a computer at the library to double-check the application due date listed on a college admissions website. Nearby, a librarian helps a group of biology students use a database to search for recent studies about mammals. In the past few decades, the Internet has become an integral component of daily life for many people. The seemingly limitless power of search engines made the Internet search extremely common, and today people increasingly rely on the Internet’s vast accumulation of sources to access all types of information. Scientists are beginning to examine how this reliance is modifying the strategies people use to store and prioritize information in their mind.
A Dependable and Valuable Asset
Psychologist Benjamin Storm from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and researchers Sean Stone and Aaron Benjamin devised an experiment to study students’ tendency to depend on the Internet for facts. To begin, the scientists divided sixty participants into multiple groups, including an “Internet” group and a “memory” group, and placed them in front of computers. The Internet group was required to use the search engine Google to answer eight challenging trivia questions. In contrast, participants in the memory group were permitted to use only their personal knowledge to answer the questions. In the second round, the researchers administered notably easier questions. This time, they allowed each group the option of using Google as they answered. Their results showed that 83 percent of the Internet group continued to consult Google in the second round, while only 63 percent of the memory group chose to do so.
People’s growing inclination to rely on the Internet in order to retrieve information, particularly facts and figures, is called cognitive offloading. Canadian researcher Evan F. Risko and British researcher Sam Gilbert, who have written extensively about the topic, say a similar process has been taking place for centuries. In the past, people used resources like encyclopedias to assist their memories; however, today the Internet, serving as a vast extended memory, allows people to digitally access and retrieve much larger volumes of information. Consequently, people’s minds are free for other cognitive feats, such as connecting data, learning new information, or solving problems.
Filing Information Away
The use of the Internet also appears to be modifying the strategies people use to store information in their mind. Researchers Betsy Sparrow from Columbia University, Jenny Liu from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Daniel Wegner from Harvard University conducted several studies to discover how people efficiently manage their information intake.
To begin, the researchers examined how people evaluate which information deserves their effort to remember. For this experiment, participants read forty trivia facts, such as “An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain,” and typed the statements into a computer file. Half the participants had been previously told the file would be saved, while half believed it would be erased. Next, the participants wrote down every fact they could recall. Those who believed the information would be erased and no longer available could recall 40 percent more facts than those who thought the information would be saved.
In another experiment, the same researchers tested the ability of study participants to remember where to access information. For this trial, participants read and typed trivia statements, which they saved in folders with generic names such as “Facts” and “Items.” After spending ten minutes writing down all the facts they could recall from memory, participants were asked which folder contained a particular fact based on a keyword. For example, “Which folder has the fact about ostriches?” Overall, participants recalled the information’s location more often than the content itself, correctly identifying 49 percent of the folders for specific facts while remembering only 23 percent of the actual trivia. The researchers concluded that our memory is adapting to the Internet age by prioritizing where to locate information even when the specific details are forgotten. According to Sparrow, the Internet has become an important form of transactive memory, an external source of the recollections and associative networks that constitute memory.
As the Internet’s resources continue to expand our “external” memory, some question whether the process may cause people to depend too heavily on technology. However, Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, says, “Knowledge is increasing exponentially; human brainpower and waking hours are not. Fortunately, the Internet and information technologies are helping us manage, search and retrieve our collective intellectual output at different scales, from Twitter and previews to e-books and online encyclopedias. Far from making us stupid, these technologies are the only things that will keep us smart.”
Question
The details in paragraph 3 about cognitive offloading convey a central idea of the passage by
- Asuggesting that reliance on the Internet for information is inevitable.
- Bdemonstrating how the methods used to store and find information have changed over time.
- Cexplaining how encyclopedias and the Internet are similar sources of information.
- Dimplying that more information can be understood now than ever before.
Show the answer
Correct answer: B
The question asks how the details in paragraph 3 about cognitive offloading convey a central idea of the passage.
A. Incorrect. Although paragraph 3 describes the Internet as “a vast extended memory,” it does not present reliance on the Internet for information as inevitable. The paragraph states that the Internet “allows people to digitally access and retrieve much larger volumes of information” and indicates that this benefit leaves people free to focus on “connecting data, learning new information, or solving problems.” However, these details about the benefits of the Internet do not express an opinion about the inevitability of Internet reliance.
B. CORRECT. A central idea of the passage is that the Internet is changing how people retain information. Paragraph 3 supports this idea by stating that “a similar process has been taking place for centuries” and that “in the past,” resources such as encyclopedias were used to store and find information. The details provided in paragraph 3 about encyclopedias and the Internet show that people have always used resources to remember information and that these resources change over time as people develop new ways to “assist their memories.”
C. Incorrect. While paragraph 3 does compare the use of encyclopedias to obtain information in the past with the use of today’s Internet, this comparison fails to convey the central idea of the passage that the Internet is changing how people remember information.
D. Incorrect. Although paragraph 3 states that “much larger volumes of information” are available on the Internet than what has been available in previous methods of information storage, such as encyclopedias, this fact does not relate to an increase in the ability to understand that information and is not a central idea of the passage.
Question analysis
This central-idea question on “A Memory Revolution,” an article about how relying on the Internet affects the way people remember, asks how the details about cognitive offloading in paragraph 3 convey a central idea of the passage. The paragraph mentions encyclopedias, the Internet and freed-up minds, and the choices each build on a different detail, so students must see what the paragraph adds to the article as a whole.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Tying one paragraph’s details to a central idea is regular grade 7 work. Paragraph 3 is short, but terms such as “cognitive offloading” and “extended memory” are abstract, and students must settle on the article’s central idea before judging the paragraph.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly understand
- What makes it hard
- The right answer is reworded moderate
- A very close wrong answer minor
- Hard words minor
- Evidence
- Answered from one paragraph or stanza
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 14, 763 words; question and choices: about grade 11, 61 words.
- Corrected from the DOE handbook
- An inaccurate statement about paragraph 3 in the explanation was corrected.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Paragraph 3 is built on a then-and-now contrast: encyclopedias once helped people remember, and today the Internet does the same job on a far larger scale. Students who notice only the pairing take it for a likeness, while those who stop at the opening “growing inclination to rely on the Internet” are tempted to call the reliance unstoppable. The point goes to students who first name the article’s central idea, that the Internet is changing how people remember, and then read the paragraph as one stage in a long history.
The right answer is reworded moderate Choosing the answer
The key’s “methods used to store and find information have changed over time” appears nowhere in paragraph 3, while the wrong choices stay near its own wording: reliance on the Internet, encyclopedias beside the Internet, and more information. (Freedle & Kostin, 1993; Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990)
A very close wrong answer minor Choosing the answer
The choice calling encyclopedias and the Internet similar sources sets up the same old-and-new pairing as the key; it parts only on likeness versus change, which the paragraph’s “however, today” decides. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987; Gorin & Embretson, 2006; Ascalon et al., 2007)
Hard words minor Understanding the question
The paragraph explains its idea in abstract terms, “cognitive offloading,” “a vast extended memory” and “other cognitive feats,” which must be decoded before its then-and-now structure shows. (Perfetti, 2007; Freedle & Kostin, 1993)
Strategy: Put the article’s central idea about the Internet and memory into your own words first, then test each choice against what paragraph 3’s sentences actually say, not against a word it shares with them.
Traps
- True but not the answer: A choice says something accurate about the text that does not answer this question.
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
- Too broad or too strong: A choice overstates, generalizes, or uses absolute words the text does not support.
The wrong answers, classified
A Too broad or too strong (King et al., 2004)
Builds on the “growing inclination to rely on the Internet” and a process “taking place for centuries,” then hardens them into “inevitable,” a claim the paragraph never makes.
C True but not the answer (King et al., 2004; Embretson & Wetzel, 1987)
Sees, accurately, that paragraph 3 sets encyclopedias beside the Internet as aids to memory, but stops at the likeness and misses the “however” that turns the comparison into a change.
D Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Matches “much larger volumes of information” to more information and swaps the paragraph’s “access and retrieve” for “understood,” though reaching more facts is not grasping them better.
What was corrected from the DOE handbook, and why
- Explanation: The DOE’s explanation of Option A says that paragraph 3 “does not discuss reliance on the Internet for information.” It does: the paragraph opens “People’s growing inclination to rely on the Internet in order to retrieve information, particularly facts and figures, is called cognitive offloading.” What the paragraph does not do is present that reliance as inevitable, which is why Option A is wrong, as the explanation’s last sentence says. The site now reads “it does not present reliance on the Internet for information as inevitable.”
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This is a central idea question. A central idea is a main point the whole article makes. Here the main point is that the Internet is changing how people remember. The question asks how paragraph 3 adds to that point. Paragraph 3 is about “cognitive offloading,” so first work out what that term means.
Read paragraph 3 closely
Paragraph 3 begins: “People’s growing inclination to rely on the Internet in order to retrieve information, particularly facts and figures, is called cognitive offloading.” Then it says “a similar process has been taking place for centuries.” Next comes the key sentence: “In the past, people used resources like encyclopedias to assist their memories; however, today the Internet, serving as a vast extended memory, allows people to digitally access and retrieve much larger volumes of information.”
Put the paragraph in plain words
An inclination is a habit of leaning toward something. Cognitive means having to do with thinking. To offload is to hand a load to someone else. So cognitive offloading means letting an outside tool do some of your remembering. People have done this for a long time. Long ago they used encyclopedias, books full of facts. Today they use the Internet. The word “however” marks the change from then to now. So the paragraph shows the tools for storing and finding facts changing over time.
Check each choice
- A does not fit. The paragraph does talk about people relying on the Internet. But it never says that reliance is inevitable, which means it cannot be avoided.
- B fits. The paragraph moves from encyclopedias “in the past” to the Internet “today.” That is a change in how people store and find information.
- C does not fit. The paragraph does set the two side by side. But it uses them to show a change, not to say they are alike.
- D does not fit. People can “access and retrieve” more information. That means find it and pull it up, not understand it.
Watch out: C is tempting because encyclopedias and the Internet both help memory. Read past the likeness to the word “however.”
Choose the answer
Paragraph 3 shows people moving from encyclopedias to the Internet to help them remember. That supports the article’s point that the Internet is changing memory. So the answer is B, “demonstrating how the methods used to store and find information have changed over time.”
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
C is the closest wrong choice. Paragraph 3 does compare encyclopedias and the Internet. But the comparison makes a point about change: the Internet now holds “much larger volumes of information.” B names that change. C stops at the likeness, so it misses what the paragraph adds to the article.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “A Memory Revolution” as printed (pages 3–4)
