PrepTest 157, Section 2, Question 18
In an experiment, each of 200 randomly selected(48 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(12 more words not shown)
- AOrdinarily almost everyone(15 more words not shown)
- BThe cartoons were(15 more words not shown)
- CAny form of(18 more words not shown)
- DAny form of(32 more words not shown)
- EOf the subjects(22 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if being told not to gesture is the thing that makes speaking harder?
Picture describing an unfamiliar cartoon: a mouse sets a trap, the cat triggers it, and now you're trying to explain the action. Normally, you might move your hands along with the story. If you're told to keep them still, some of your attention could go toward obeying that instruction instead of finding words. The restricted group might speak less fluently because of that distraction.
That would be different from showing that gesturing itself helps people find phrases. The study finds quicker speech and less repetition among the people who gesture. We still need the connection between those observations and the particular benefit the author claims.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for an assumption that makes the conclusion follow. I don't have a precise sentence to predict here, but I know the job it must do: establish that gesturing helps speakers quickly find the phrases they want. More description of the experiment won't be enough unless it supplies that link.
Working the answers
- A
This adds another association: people regularly gesture when speaking quickly and with little repetition. It doesn't tell us that the gestures help them find words. The same behavior and speech pattern could occur together without the former producing the claimed benefit.
- B
Who selected the cartoons and how many sources they used don't settle the link between gestures and finding phrases. Whether the scene comes from one cartoon series or another, we still need evidence that the observed speaking pattern establishes the claimed help.
- CCorrect
This is a broad rule, but it supplies exactly the needed connection. Any behavior correlated with quicker speech and less repetition helps speakers find phrases quickly. The experiment associates gesturing with both those speech features. Under C's rule, gesturing therefore has the benefit the conclusion claims. We don't have to defend that sweeping rule as a fact about the world; the question tells us to assume it.
- D
This starts with the very thing we're trying to establish: a behavior helps speakers find phrases quickly. It then says that such a behavior also produces quicker speech and less repetition. We have the latter observations, not an established finding of the former benefit. D would let us move from help finding phrases to the observed speech pattern; it doesn't let us move from that pattern back to help finding phrases.
- E
This makes the association more detailed: more gesturing goes with even faster speech and less repetition. But a stronger or more finely graded association isn't the rule that proves the claimed benefit. We could still ask why those features occur together and whether finding phrases is what gesturing helps with. C directly establishes the connection that E leaves open.
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