PrepTest 123, Section 2, Question 11
By Brandon Beaver | Published October 29, 2024
Type: Role
Difficulty:
Explanations
What happened during the transition from oral culture to literary culture was just one example. We don’t know if a similar brain rot effect will happen. Also, what is that effect—it was never mentioned. What happened to the “powerful memory and extemporaneous eloquence that were intrinsic to oral culture” after the transition to literary culture?
Anyway, the sentence in question serves as a counterexample—it’s a time when a similar complaint arose, which complaint was conceivably unfounded.
A
No, it’s evidence against that.
B
No. The conclusion is the last sentence. There is no general hypothesis, and if there were, it wouldn’t be that.
C
Yup, that’s what it is—a counterexample. Previously, people thought a similar transition would have a detrimental effect on the human mind. Apparently (the passage doesn’t confirm that a detrimental effect didn’t occur), that thought was wrong.
D
Nah. Opponents don’t claim the skills are being “lost” (just that they are being “corroded”) and the author doesn’t go so far as to say the fear is “unwarranted.”
E
No, it’s evidence on the author’s side.
Passage
It is now a common complaint that the electronic media have corroded the intellectual skills required and fostered by the literary media. But several centuries ago the complaint was that certain intellectual skills, such as the powerful memory and extemporaneous eloquence that were intrinsic to oral culture, were being destroyed by the spread of literacy. So, what awaits us is probably a mere alteration of the human mind rather than its devolution.
Question 11
The reference to the complaint of several centuries ago that powerful memory and extemporaneous eloquence were being destroyed plays which one of the following roles in the argument?
evidence supporting the claim that the intellectual skills fostered by the literary media are being destroyed by the electronic media
an illustration of the general hypothesis being advanced that intellectual abilities are inseparable from the means by which people communicate
an example of a cultural change that did not necessarily have a detrimental effect on the human mind overall
evidence that the claim that the intellectual skills required and fostered by the literary media are being lost is unwarranted
possible evidence, mentioned and then dismissed, that might be cited by supporters of the hypothesis being criticized