Diagnostic Test 6 Practice Test

Attention wanes during prolonged, monotonous tasks, yet many workplaces treat breaks as luxuries. A psychologist argues that microbreaks lasting as little as 30 seconds can restore attention without meaningfully cutting into work time. The proposal is physiological: brief changes of posture and gaze reset oculomotor activity and interrupt accumulating mental fatigue, allowing performance to recover. According to this view, workers do not need long pauses to maintain vigilance; tiny, frequent interruptions can suffice. If microbreaks are effective, we should see sustained accuracy and reaction speed on tedious tasks when they are built into routines.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the scholar's claim?

An environmental scientist claims that microplastic ingestion impairs growth rates of wild fish in natural lakes, not only in artificial lab settings. The argument is that microplastics reduce feeding efficiency and energy assimilation, producing slower somatic growth even when food is abundant. Critics note that lakes with high microplastic loads often suffer from other stressors, such as low prey availability or warmer temperatures, making it hard to attribute growth differences to microplastics alone. The scientist maintains that field-based causal evidence—ideally manipulating microplastic exposure in natural waters while holding other factors constant—would best test the claim.

Which finding, if true, would most directly support the scholar's claim?