PrepTest 155, Section 3, Question 27
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(13 more words not shown)
- AIf different languages(19 more words not shown)
- BIf a speaker(22 more words not shown)
- CIf one’s language(22 more words not shown)
- DIf a concept(24 more words not shown)
- EIf a language(17 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
B's first inference gives us the principle to look for. The participants lack a verbal counting system, yet their performance reveals an approximate concept of number. If the concept is present without the corresponding linguistic expression, that is evidence that language didn't create that concept.
What we’re looking for
Keep approximate quantity separate from exact equality. B later leaves open whether number words create, expand, or draw attention to the latter. We shouldn't turn the first inference into a claim that language cannot create any concept at all.
Working the answers
- A
B doesn't infer that languages create concepts because they apply incompatible ideas to an object. Its evidence runs the other way: a concept is present even without the relevant verbal system. The findings about exact equality leave several explanations open rather than establishing this principle.
- BCorrect
This matches the inference from nonverbal numerical understanding to a language-independent origin. The participants have an approximate concept of quantity despite lacking a verbal counting system. A's examples show how language directs attention and associations; they don't use possession of an unnamed concept to infer its origin.
- C
Neither account argues that people would be unable to learn another language because their first language lacked certain concepts. The conditional claim about learning a language isn't the reasoning behind B's numerical findings.
- D
Greater precision doesn't establish that language created the concept. B explicitly offers other possibilities: words could develop a concept or direct attention to it. This answer treats one possible explanation as the conclusion the difference requires.
- E
Requiring speakers to attend to something doesn't establish where the concept came from. B's evidence for an independent origin is possession without a verbal counting system, not an obligation imposed by language. The proposed must-have-been-independent conclusion lacks that evidentiary link.
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