PrepTest 108, Section 2, Question 8
The traditional way to define the difference between(64 more words not shown)
The situation described above most(8 more words not shown)
- AFrequency of electronic(11 more words not shown)
- BMany people who(13 more words not shown)
- CPeople who live(12 more words not shown)
- DWe are unable(17 more words not shown)
- EPeople are choosing(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
If I live out in the country and send messages all day, have I suddenly started living an urban lifestyle? That's a strange use of the term. And someone in a city who rarely communicates electronically still lives in a city.
But the author is deliberately proposing a different way to classify lifestyles. Location used to do the work; now the author wants frequency of electronic communication to do it. Under that proposal, a rural address and an “urban” lifestyle can go together.
What we’re looking for
The question asks which proposition this situation illustrates. We don't have to agree that the new labels are useful. We have to recognize what the author is describing: electronic communication is taking over the role geography traditionally played in defining the two lifestyles.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
“Superseding” means taking the place of something. That's the change the passage describes: how often people communicate electronically takes the place of where they live as the basis for classifying their lifestyles.
The person in the country who communicates with dozens of people each day makes that change concrete. The author classifies that person as living an urban lifestyle despite the rural location.
- B
The author isn't comparing how satisfying people find these lifestyles. Someone could use electronic technology constantly and dislike doing so. That would still place them on the author's urban side of the distinction. Preference doesn't determine the proposed label.
- C
Electronic communication is only one kind of communication. A person who rarely uses a fax or modem might spend all day talking with neighbors in person. The passage gives us a difference in electronic contact; C broadens that into a difference in communication overall.
- D
We aren't told that the magnitude of future changes is impossible to foresee. The passage describes a proposed change in how lifestyles are defined. That doesn't establish anything about our ability to predict all the effects of the information revolution.
- E
This is about people moving or choosing different places to live. The passage is about how to describe their lifestyles wherever they already live. A person could stay in the same house and receive a different label under the author's approach. We don't need a change of address to get the change being discussed.
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