PrepTest 111, Section 1, Question 11
Linguist: Some people have understood certain studies as(79 more words not shown)
The linguist's argument proceeds(1 more words not shown)
- Aoffering evidence for(6 more words not shown)
- Bpointing out an(11 more words not shown)
- Coffering evidence that(15 more words not shown)
- Dproviding a different(17 more words not shown)
- Epointing out a(16 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What, exactly, does the vocabulary test measure? A test in one language could be a reasonable way to check a child's vocabulary in that language. So my first reaction to the linguist's criticism is that testing just one language isn't automatically a mistake. We need to ask what the researchers are trying to learn from that score.
Here, people use the results to make a broader claim about the children's “conceptual map.” Knowing fewer words in the tested language doesn't necessarily mean having fewer concepts available. A child might express a concept using the other language, and the test would miss it. Imagine a child who can name a dog in one language but not in the language being tested. That child still has the concept of a dog. The dual-language results make the concern concrete: the children often expressed a concept with a word from only one of their languages.
What we’re looking for
That changes how I view the objection. The problem isn't that a single-language test can tell us nothing. It's that this test can leave out knowledge relevant to the conclusion being drawn. Asked how the linguist argues, I'd say the linguist challenges the way the study obtained its evidence. A flaw in that method can undermine the conclusion without proving the opposite conclusion true.
Working the answers
- A
The linguist doesn't present bilingualism as superior. Showing that a study has failed to establish a disadvantage doesn't establish an advantage. The conclusion concerns the weakness of the studies, not a benefit bilingual children necessarily have over other children.
- B
A poorly supported view needn't contradict itself. The linguist identifies a problem with the evidence used to support the claim that bilingualism overstresses children; no two parts of that claim are shown to be incompatible. The view could turn out to be true for some other reason even if these tests fail to establish it.
- C
This expands the criticism from the particular testing method to any vocabulary test. The linguist actually uses results from dual-language tests to show what the single-language tests miss. That makes little sense as an attack on every possible use of vocabulary testing. The objection concerns the coverage of these tests.
- D
The original studies were interpreted as showing a disadvantage: a reduced conceptual map. The linguist isn't offering a new explanation for an established advantage. D gets both the direction of the reported finding and the kind of response wrong.
- ECorrect
The methodological error is testing in only one language and then using that limited result to judge the child's broader conceptual resources. The dual-language tests show why the limitation matters: a concept can be expressed in one language without being expressed in the other.
The response attacks how the supposed evidence of a problem was collected. It doesn't need to establish that bilingualism has no disadvantages at all. It needs to show why this method doesn't adequately support the particular problem people claim to have found.
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