PrepTest 155, Section 3, Question 23
Passage A In 1940, Benjamin Lee Whorf seduced(498 more words not shown)
Passage A(236 more words not shown)
Passage B(270 more words not shown)
Both passages are concerned with(7 more words not shown)
- AAre there limits(8 more words not shown)
- BWhat does scientific(9 more words not shown)
- CDo differences among(10 more words not shown)
- DWere Whorf’s claims(9 more words not shown)
- EIs the influence(13 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Our two main points fit under a common question: how does language affect thought? A uses grammatical gender to explain differences in attention and associations. B uses numerical tasks to investigate what people can understand without a verbal counting system and what number words might add.
What we’re looking for
We want a question broad enough to cover both investigations, without turning either one into a claim it doesn't make.
Working the answers
- A
Whorf's claim about mutual understanding appears in A, but neither account investigates the limits of translating one language into another. Understanding concepts and translating expressions are different tasks.
- BCorrect
Both draw on research to investigate the relationship between language and thought. The German–Spanish comparison supplies evidence about associations; the numerical studies supply evidence about concepts that may exist independently of language and concepts that language may help develop.
- C
This reverses the direction of the inquiry. The authors ask what language contributes to thought, not whether different ways of thinking caused languages to differ.
- D
A criticizes the lack of evidence behind Whorf's original claims. B considers several explanations for numerical reasoning. Neither is principally trying to establish that Whorf's own claims had better evidence than people realized.
- E
Studying gender and number doesn't establish that language's influence is confined to those areas. The authors use them to investigate the relationship; they don't set its outer limits.
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