PrepTest 158, Section 3, Question 22
Some researchers claim that people tend to gesture(58 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(11 more words not shown)
- Aappealing to the(14 more words not shown)
- Bappealing to a(15 more words not shown)
- Cciting a psychological(11 more words not shown)
- Dadvocating an explanation(13 more words not shown)
- Eoffering a reason(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
It's easy to picture a hand gesture showing an airplane hitting a bird. It's harder to picture a gesture for an abstract idea like moral goodness. That's the sort of difference the researchers claim: people tend to gesture less when expressing abstract concepts.
“Tend to” matters. An exception doesn't automatically defeat a general tendency. But the author gives a more particular response than that: perhaps something we classify as abstract feels physical to the person speaking.
Take “comprehension.” We might hear a state of understanding, while the speaker thinks of grasping something. A grabbing gesture could fit that person's physical picture, even though an observer labels the word abstract. The disagreement about the category can make the behavior look like an exception.
What we’re looking for
The method question asks how the author responds. My initial description would be that the author points to different ways of understanding a word, making the abstract-versus-physical division less clear than it first appears. We need an answer that captures both that move and what the author uses it to defend.
Working the answers
- A
The reference to ambiguity sounds like our description, but the rest is wrong. The author isn't trying to prove that the correlation is universal. The argument defends the researchers' tendency claim against an objection. A good opening phrase doesn't rescue an inaccurate account of the goal.
- B
The psychological fact concerns some people's perception of words. It isn't a universal rule about everyone's psychology. The original generalization is also stated as a tendency. B imposes universality where the reasoning doesn't require it.
- CCorrect
The psychological fact is that some people understand a supposedly abstract word as a physical action. The generalization is that people gesture less for abstract concepts. The apparently disconfirming evidence is behavior that seems not to fit that pattern.
The author tries to reconcile them: a person gesturing while saying “comprehension” may be thinking physically, about grasping. If so, that gesture doesn't undermine the tendency in the way an observer first assumes. C describes the fact, the apparent conflict, and the attempt to make the two fit together.
- D
The argument doesn't establish an explanation by eliminating rival explanations. It isn't deciding among several accounts of why people gesture more when describing physical things. It responds to apparent exceptions by examining how people understand the words they're using.
- E
The author is defending the generalization against a criticism, not arguing that we need still more evidence before accepting it. Nor are we told that the generalization is widely accepted. E gets the direction of the response wrong.
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