PrepTest 157, Section 1, Question 6
Grammarians of the prescriptive school take it as(452 more words not shown)
The passage says that the(6 more words not shown)
- Acriticize the habits(3 more words not shown)
- Bobserve how language(3 more words not shown)
- Cfacilitate communication among(2 more words not shown)
- Dslow the pace(3 more words not shown)
- Einfluence laws that(3 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
Descriptivists describe what people do with language. They aren't trying to make speakers follow a preferred rule or stop a new usage from spreading. That distinction was established before the data example, which shows why they accept a usage that prescriptivists reject.
Working the answers
- A
Criticizing speakers' habits would evaluate their usage against a standard. The stated aim here is to describe the way people actually use language.
- BCorrect
The opening says descriptivists are satisfied with recording how people in a speech community communicate in practice (paragraph 1). Observing that usage captures their task, rather than changing it.
- C
A shared standard facilitating communication is part of the prescriptivists' defense in the final paragraph. It isn't the aim assigned to descriptivists in the opening.
- D
They argue that trying to prevent established changes is generally futile. Slowing change is not the purpose we are given for their work.
- E
This would make them interveners who change the forces governing usage. The account presents them as observers of actual usage, not people trying to influence those laws.
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