What explains why adolescents may be better at solving problems than younger children?

What explains why adolescents may be better at solving problems than younger children?

• A. A halt in synaptic pruning
• B. Increases in synapses
• C. Improvements in processing speed
• D. Improvements in concrete thinking

Answer: (C)

Faster processing speed is what helps adolescents solve problems more effectively than younger children. As the brain matures, neural pathways become more myelinated, speeding up communication between brain regions. That means teens can hold more information in working memory, compare options more quickly, and carry out several reasoning steps in a shorter time. With this quicker mental pace, they can approach complex problems more efficiently. Other ideas don’t fit as well. Simply having more synapses isn’t the main driver in adolescence—the brain often refines its networks through pruning to become more efficient. A halt in pruning isn’t accurate, since pruning continues to optimize processing. Improvements in concrete thinking don’t account for the broad gains in problem solving across different kinds of tasks, whereas faster processing speed directly boosts how quickly and effectively adolescents can reason through problems.

Faster processing speed is what helps adolescents solve problems more effectively than younger children. As the brain matures, neural pathways become more myelinated, speeding up communication between brain regions. That means teens can hold more information in working memory, compare options more quickly, and carry out several reasoning steps in a shorter time. With this quicker mental pace, they can approach complex problems more efficiently.

Other ideas don’t fit as well. Simply having more synapses isn’t the main driver in adolescence—the brain often refines its networks through pruning to become more efficient. A halt in pruning isn’t accurate, since pruning continues to optimize processing. Improvements in concrete thinking don’t account for the broad gains in problem solving across different kinds of tasks, whereas faster processing speed directly boosts how quickly and effectively adolescents can reason through problems.