PrepTest 149, Section 2, Question 5
The following passage is adapted from an article(467 more words not shown)
When the passage refers to(14 more words not shown)
- Awhose sounds and(8 more words not shown)
- Bthat name objects,(9 more words not shown)
- Cthat are written(7 more words not shown)
- Dthat are direct(4 more words not shown)
- Ethat sound different(3 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Listen to the example: dang-tang sounds like downtown. It also refers to downtown. That gives us a working prediction: the term carries over the original word's sound and meaning.
Check the next sentence before settling on a definition. The author introduces direct translations as a different process. Labor plus day gives the meaning of Labor Day without needing to sound like the English phrase.
What we’re looking for
That contrast matters. If we call both processes direct translation, we've erased a distinction the author deliberately made.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This matches the sound and meaning carried into dang-tang from downtown. We can infer the intended meaning of transliteration from the example and its contrast with direct translation; we don't need to bring in a technical definition from elsewhere.
- B
Objects, places, and events describe what much of the new vocabulary names. That doesn't tell us how a transliterated word is formed. A place could be named by borrowing sounds or by translating meanings, so B doesn't distinguish the process we're asked about.
- C
Similar sound isn't identical writing. The example supports a resemblance in pronunciation, not a claim that the word is written the same way in both languages.
- D
These are expressly presented as the other kind of term. Treating transliteration as direct translation would collapse the downtown and Labor Day examples into one category when the author separates them.
- E
Nothing compares the word's sound across Chinese dialects. Our comparison is between the English word and the Chinese-American term derived from it. We cannot infer a claim about different dialects from that relationship.
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