PrepTest 126, Section 4, Question 2
It is well documented that people have positive(58 more words not shown)
The claim that people have(18 more words not shown)
- AIt is a(20 more words not shown)
- BIt is a(28 more words not shown)
- CIt is a(17 more words not shown)
- DIt is a(27 more words not shown)
- EIt is a(20 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
“Wonderful” sounds positive, and “nausea” doesn't. That's easy to understand when the words have meanings. But people also react positively or negatively to made-up words. What are they responding to then?
Maybe a string of sounds seems friendly, harsh, or familiar. We could invent something like “scuba-buba” and ask people how it strikes them even though it has no established meaning. The author uses the experiments to support the idea that a word's sound matters alongside its meaning.
What we’re looking for
Now we're asked what role the finding about nonsense words plays. Start with the point the author wants us to believe: both meaning and sound influence people's responses. The experimental finding is a reason for that conclusion. It isn't something the author first proves from the conclusion. The answer needs to identify both the supporting role and the correct conclusion.
Working the answers
- A
This starts well by calling the finding a premise, but then gives the wrong conclusion. The author doesn't conclude that every word produces either a positive or a negative response. Some might produce neither. The point is about what influences responses, not a guarantee that people react one way or the other to absolutely any word.
- B
The direction of support is backward. The author uses people's reactions to nonsense words to argue that sound affects responses. The author doesn't start by asserting that sound and meaning matter and then use that assertion to establish the experimental finding.
- C
Reactions to meaningful words aren't offered as evidence proving that people react to nonsense words. The experiments supply that second finding. Both observations contribute to the author's broader account of how people respond; one isn't presented as a reason to believe the other.
- DCorrect
The finding is a premise supporting the conclusion that both meaning and sound help produce people's responses. “Engendered” just means produced or brought about. Once we translate that word, D gives the relationship we identified: the nonsense-word result is evidence for the influence of sound.
- E
The finding isn't a conclusion, and the passage never claims that experimental responses are essentially different from ordinary responses. An experiment can reveal something about everyday behavior without establishing that the two settings produce different kinds of reactions. E invents a supporting claim and assigns the finding the wrong role.
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