PrepTest 155, Section 3, Question 25
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)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- APassage A presents(22 more words not shown)
- BPassage A depicts(23 more words not shown)
- CPassage A regards(19 more words not shown)
- DPassage A portrays(18 more words not shown)
- EPassage A focuses(15 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
What is being compared in each account? A asks how speakers associate qualities such as strength or elegance with the same objects. B asks what numerical concepts people have without number words, especially whether approximate quantity and exact equality depend on language in the same way.
What we’re looking for
That is the useful contrast: differences in subjective associations versus possession of concepts. Neither account says that different languages necessarily trap their speakers in incompatible realities.
Working the answers
- A
B actually finds a shared concept of approximate quantity in participants with and without verbal counting systems. Its distinction concerns exact equality, not two languages that present incompatible pictures of reality. An incorrect numerical judgment doesn't, by itself, establish that broader contrast between the accounts.
- B
This misplaces the mechanisms. A's examples depend on grammatical gender. B examines the availability of number words and verbal counting. Describing B's focus as grammatical structure gets the comparison wrong.
- C
The claim about impeded understanding belongs to Whorf, whom A criticizes. It isn't A's conclusion. And impeding understanding would not mean making it impossible. B doesn't present numerical vocabulary as an obstacle to mutual understanding between language groups either.
- D
A investigates how linguistic differences influence associations. It doesn't explain linguistic differences as the result of conceptual differences. The proposed direction for A is reversed.
- ECorrect
Strength versus elegance illustrates the subjective associations in A. In B, the question is whether people possess approximate and exact numerical concepts, and how words affect that possession. This captures what each set of studies is examining without turning the findings into a sweeping claim about incompatible worldviews.
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