PrepTest 140, Section 3, Question 13
Several three-year-olds who had learned to count to(58 more words not shown)
The situation described above best(7 more words not shown)
- AThere are some(10 more words not shown)
- BFamiliarity with a(13 more words not shown)
- CMnemonic devices such(11 more words not shown)
- DChildren can learn(8 more words not shown)
- ESongs are useful(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Knowing the words 'one,' 'two,' and 'three' doesn't mean you can remember a particular string of them. These children knew the digits. Their problem was keeping the digits of their own phone numbers in the right order.
The song helped with that order. Think about the alphabet song: someone might use its tune to get from one familiar letter to the next. A classroom song for a formula can serve the same purpose. The tune gives the information a form that's easier to remember.
Could the benefit come partly from repetition? Sure. Perhaps the song made the children more willing to repeat their numbers until they remembered them. That would still be a way the song helped. We don't need to settle the exact mechanism to recognize its usefulness.
What we’re looking for
The question asks what the situation illustrates. I'd keep the claim modest: songs can help children remember a sequence.
Working the answers
- A
The children hadn't learned their numbers before the song, but that doesn't establish that they could never have learned them another way. More practice, a different memory exercise, or additional time might have worked. The story shows that the song helped, not that learning was impossible without it.
- B
The children were already familiar with the names of the digits. Their difficulty wasn't knowing which word expresses which concept; it was remembering the order of familiar words in their phone numbers. B describes a different obstacle from the one the teacher addressed.
- C
Better than every other method is much more than the story supports. We haven't compared songs with all the other ways someone could teach a child a number sequence. A successful example can illustrate usefulness without establishing superiority over every alternative.
- D
The passage doesn't say the children lacked an understanding of numbers. It says they could count and knew the digit names but couldn't remember their phone numbers. Trouble remembering a sequence doesn't show that the individual numbers have no meaning to the child.
- ECorrect
The 'familiar words' are the names of the digits. The children knew those words, and the songs helped them recall the order in which they occurred in their phone numbers. This is the modest lesson the example supports: songs can be useful for remembering an ordered sequence.
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