Reading comp PrepTest 107 · Section 2 · Question 8

(A) Does this answer choice match our anticipation of the main point (“In order to counter the loss of traditional tribal languages, members of some communities have successfully navigated the difficult process of documenting their languages in written form in order to teach them to younger members of the community”)?

No. The author points out that the influence of majority culture causes the disuse of tribal languages (P1 S2), and that this problem can be solved by community self-teaching (P1 S3). The author also points out that this endeavor of self-teaching requires writing down oral languages (P2 S1), and that this process generates two sub-problems that can pose challenges to community leaders (P3 S1-2, P4 S1), but the author does not link the influence of majority culture to the difficulty of teaching languages to younger tribe members. There are several steps in between those two factors, and one does not directly affect the other, as this answer choice implies.

(B) Does this answer choice match our anticipation of the main point (“In order to counter the loss of traditional tribal languages, members of some communities have successfully navigated the difficult process of documenting their languages in written form in order to teach them to younger members of the community”)?

No. This answer choice is a mischaracterization of the passage’s message. The first section of the answer choice claims that what is at stake in this issue of traditional tribal languages is nothing less than “holding on” to tribal culture. This is an overstatement and something the passage doesn’t say or hint at. The author says that the problem of language loss is “serious,” (P1 S3), but they don’t claim that a tribe’s whole culture is dependent on preserving the language.

(C) Does this answer choice match our anticipation of the main point (“In order to counter the loss of traditional tribal languages, members of some communities have successfully navigated the difficult process of documenting their languages in written form in order to teach them to younger members of the community”)?

No. This answer choice is a mischaracterization of the passage also. The first part of the answer choice claims that tribes are teaching languages to younger members using Western-style linguistics because of doubts regarding the “value of preserving oral forms of culture.” The passage doesn’t express any doubts about the value of preserving oral culture, merely about the feasibility of preserving oral culture.

The clearest place where this distinction can be seen is the fifth paragraph, which recounts that some people say that oral languages should be preserved orally only and don’t need to be written down and taught in the way described in the rest of the passage (P5 S1). The author counters that oral traditions are already on the decline, hence the ongoing loss of language, and that exclusively oral teaching of languages would be sufficient to preserve them only if the community could exclude the influence of majority culture, a task which the author implies is nearly impossible (P5 S2).

If traditional languages could be preserved orally, the author seems to be saying, of course that is what tribes would be doing and the languages would continue to be vibrant, but because majority culture is already encroaching on traditional culture and language (P1 S2), it is necessary to come up with this new approach to community memory, which includes a written element.

(D) Does this answer choice match our anticipation of the main point (“In order to counter the loss of traditional tribal languages, members of some communities have successfully navigated the difficult process of documenting their languages in written form in order to teach them to younger members of the community”)?

Yes. This answer choice matches our anticipation. It adds a phrase about the value of traditional languages, which differs slightly from our wording (“in order to counter the loss of traditional tribal languages”), but both versions convey the idea that tribal languages need to be saved and that losing them is a problem. Both the answer choice and our version of the main point mention difficulties, and both mention teaching languages to younger tribe members.

(E) Does this answer choice match our anticipation of the main point (“In order to counter the loss of traditional tribal languages, members of some communities have successfully navigated the difficult process of documenting their languages in written form in order to teach them to younger members of the community”)?

No. This is a bit of a convoluted answer choice.

The first part of the answer choice implies that there is a conflict between preserving oral culture and using writing to do so. The passage brings up the difficulty of preserving oral culture in writing (P3 S2, P4 S2), and the debate over whether to preserve oral culture in writing (P5 S1-2), but it doesn’t mention any kind of contradiction in preserving an oral language in writing, so this answer choice is a misrepresentation of what the passage says.

Also, the answer choice claims that the enterprise of teaching languages necessitates “eschewing the influences of the majority culture.” This is debatable. In fact, the passage seems to imply that the tools of Western linguistics, ill-adapted as they may be for documenting a traditionally oral language, are nevertheless of use in the endeavor of standardizing and teaching traditional tribal languages. The author points out that some members of the Northern Ute tribe were “troubled” by the necessity of adopting different spellings of the same word in order to accommodate the teaching of multiple dialects of their language because they were trained in Western linguistics (P4 S4), but makes clear that these members were nevertheless deeply involved in the endeavor of recording their language in writing for the purpose of teaching it. For the Northern Ute, the process of writing down their language and teaching it obviously involved some references to majority culture, at least as far as linguistic systems, and though those references may have caused conflict at times, it cannot be said that the tribe “eschewed” the influences of the majority culture, as this answer choice states.