PrepTest 103, Section 2, Question 18
Each child in a group of young children(74 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(22 more words not shown)
- ABecause several words(21 more words not shown)
- BIn reading the(20 more words not shown)
- CThe more experienced(18 more words not shown)
- DBoth tasks used(23 more words not shown)
- EThe beginning readers(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Seeing the same word twice seems helpful. Why does that advantage show up for the experienced readers but not the beginners?
The experienced children make fewer pronunciation errors on whichever task comes second. They may have worked out a difficult word the first time and can use that experience the next time, whether the word appears in a paragraph or a shuffled list.
The beginners follow a different pattern: they do better on the paragraph, even when it comes first. Keep that direction straight. Their advantage is the paragraph, not the list, and performing a task second does not improve their results.
That makes me think about context. A paragraph gives surrounding words that can help a child guess an unfamiliar word. A randomly ordered list removes that help. Perhaps the beginners depend on those clues while the more experienced readers can work out and remember the word's pronunciation itself.
What we’re looking for
The question asks why the order of the tasks did not matter for beginners. Look for an explanation of that dependence on context, rather than a general reason experienced readers are better readers.
Working the answers
- A
A shorter list tells us how much material the children read. It does not explain why beginners consistently make fewer pronunciation errors in the paragraph or why reading either task first fails to help them on the second. We need a difference in how they handle the words, not just the total length of the two tasks.
- B
This compares the two groups' skill at using paragraph context. But the result we need to explain concerns beginners doing better with context than without it, regardless of order. Saying experienced readers are even better at using context does not explain why beginners fail to gain an advantage from having encountered the words in the earlier task.
- CCorrect
The beginners rely solely on context to guess difficult words. A paragraph supplies that context, and a randomly ordered list does not. So the paragraph can help them whichever task comes first. Merely seeing the word in an earlier task does not give them the independent pronunciation method they are missing.
The experienced readers sound out difficult words. That gives them something useful to carry from the first task into the second: they have already worked through the pronunciation. C explains the different patterns by identifying the different ways the children read, not simply by calling one group more skilled.
- D
Both tasks using the same words makes practice possible, but it does not explain why only the experienced readers benefit from doing a task second. Even recognizing a word does not necessarily mean a beginner can pronounce it without contextual clues. D leaves the crucial difference between the reading methods unexplained.
- E
Beginners making more mistakes than experienced readers overall would not explain the effect of task order. We need to understand the beginners' paragraph-versus-list pattern, not just compare the groups' total skill. E could be true while the particular result remained puzzling.
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