|Question 24Verbal

Source Texts

Text
In a study of perceptions of listening ability, participants explained their position on a sociopolitical issue and then received a listener's written summary that expressed agreement or disagreement. Within selected summaries, researchers embedded markers of attentive listening (e.g., references to specific details), hypothesizing that such indications would positively influence perceptions of listening skill even in the context of disagreement. Instead, participants consistently rated listeners who expressed disagreement as less skilled, regardless of the other traits of the listeners' summaries.
What does the text most strongly imply about how participants responded to expressions of disagreement?
Although participants were critical of expressions of disagreement, they gave higher ratings to listeners whose summaries included markers of attentiveness than to listeners whose summaries did not include these markers.
A
Although participants maintained their positions regardless of a summary's level of detail, they tended to regard listeners who expressed disagreement as more attentive when these listeners provided more detailed summaries.
B
When participants felt personally invested in the topics they discussed, they were less likely to perceive listeners who expressed disagreement as attentive, regardless of evidence to the contrary in these listeners' summaries.
C
When participants encountered summaries from listeners who expressed disagreement with their views, participants tended to disregard evidence that the listeners had in fact been attentive.
D