PrepTest 104, Section 1, Question 24
Folklorist: Oral traditions are often preferable to written(55 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(10 more words not shown)
- AAccuracy in communication(3 more words not shown)
- BLiterate populations need(6 more words not shown)
- CTradition is of(6 more words not shown)
- DEconomy of expression(6 more words not shown)
- EIdeas that cannot(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Why would remembering a story be better than being able to look it up?
I can see the memory benefit: if there is no written copy, people have to remember the story themselves. But having a record has advantages, too. A book can preserve details for someone reading it years later, and written sources can give us access to information we couldn't personally keep in our heads. Better recall isn't automatically the only thing worth valuing.
The folklorist then argues that writing can become so sprawling that it confuses everyone. It certainly can. But that doesn't mean every piece of writing does. Clear, focused writing is still possible.
The final point is that oral traditions quickly lose useless and irrelevant material because they depend on memory. I understand why that might help. I still wonder whether valuable details could be lost along the way, or whether preserving more material would let us sort through it later. The preference depends on how much we value cutting the material down.
What we’re looking for
We're asked for a principle that helps the folklorist's argument. So we need to support the preference the author is making: keeping the expression focused is better than allowing it to become bloated with extra words. That would turn the stated difference into a reason to favor oral traditions.
Working the answers
- A
Accuracy is not the difference the folklorist establishes. Writing could be wordy and confusing while its individual claims remain accurate; oral communication could require memory without becoming more accurate. A also doesn't tell us why mental self-reliance should settle the preference. It gives a relationship that the argument has not connected to its comparison.
- B
Saying that literate people need to work at communicating efficiently doesn't show that oral traditions are preferable. They might successfully make that effort and produce clear, concise writing. We need a principle explaining why the feature the folklorist favors counts as an advantage, not just a recommendation to improve communication.
- C
Both sides of the comparison are traditions: oral traditions and written traditions. C might initially sound appealing because the argument discusses preserving information, but it doesn't distinguish the two forms in the way the author does. Written traditions can preserve tradition, and oral traditions can accumulate knowledge. Ranking tradition above knowledge does not establish the desired preference.
- DCorrect
“Economy of expression” means communicating without unnecessary words. “Verbosity” means using too many words. Put plainly, D says we should prefer concise expression to wordiness.
That fits the folklorist's comparison. Writing can accumulate confusing material, while reliance on memory removes useless and irrelevant material from oral traditions. D says that the resulting economy is something we should prefer. It therefore gives the author a reason to treat that difference as an advantage.
We don't have to turn this into a rule that the shortest version of anything is always best. Nor does D prove that every oral tradition is better than every written one. It supports the particular preference the argument makes, whose conclusion is that oral traditions are often preferable.
- E
This concerns whether to discuss certain ideas at all. The folklorist is comparing ways of preserving and communicating traditions. We haven't been told that the relevant ideas cannot be discussed clearly in either form, and a writer's confusing presentation doesn't establish that the idea itself is impossible to discuss clearly. E addresses a different decision.
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