Reading comp PrepTest 116 · Section 4 · Question 8

Topic: Social Science

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • A debate is described (how to implement multicultural education), and one side is introduced (modest, teach kids about other cultures through majority culture's lens)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • List of different proposals for implementing multicultural education:
    • The "most modest" side: students should learn about other cultures but only within the framework of the "methods, perspectives, and values of the majority culture" (third and fourth sentences)
  • Author's attitude: "most modest" (fourth sentence)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Criticism of modest proposal (can't understand different cultures/values with majority culture's perspective)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Critics' view:
    • The more modest proposal won't work because you can't adequately learn about another culture without moving beyond the majority culture's perspective (first through last sentences)
  • Comparison, according to critics:
    • Some cultures have different values that arose from radically different social and historical circumstances (second and last sentences)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • A new version of the modest proposal (adopt a neutral stance when studying cultures) and author's criticism (still a Western approach)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • List of different proposals for implementing multicultural education (continued from first paragraph):
    • Students are to be taught from a neutral perspective, so no culture is judged by the standard of another (first and second sentences)
  • Author's view
    • The methods of studying the culture — anthropology, social psychology, political science, and sociology — are still clearly "Western" (third through last sentences)
  • Author's attitude: "However" (third sentence), "still identifiably Western" (third sentence)

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Criticism of the second proposal (essential the same as the first since it privileges a scientific outlook)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Critics' view
    • The Western system of studying cultures can't really be neutral because it's designed to prioritize a scientific outlook, and using a scientific perspective to evaluate a non-scientific culture is unfair (first, second, and fifth sentences)
    • The only way to truly understand a culture is to adopt the perspective of that culture (last sentence)
  • Examples of things the Western system prizes, according to critics:
    • The objective over the subjective, the logical over the intuitive, and the empirically verifiable over the mystical (first sentence)
  • Comparison, according to critics:
    • Because the second proposal privileges a Western, scientific approach, it's not any different from the first proposal (third sentence)

Main Point: Proposals for implementing multicultural education in the U.S. and Canada have been met with skepticism about their ability to promote a genuine understanding of other cultures.

Describing a Debate: This passage utilizes a Describing a Debate Meta-Structure.* In such structures, the author describes two sides of a debate without taking a side or attempting to reconcile the two sides. In this passage, the author describes a debate about the best way to implement multicultural education but never endorses a side of that debate.

The first paragraph lays out the terms of this debate. Many people in the U.S. and Canada believe in multicultural education, but there is controversy about the best way to pursue it. The first proposal (which the author calls the "modest" one) suggests that students should study other cultures from the perspective of the majority culture (which, in the U.S. and Canada, is the Western culture). The second paragraph voices the concerns of certain critics of this proposal. According to them, to view a culture from the perspective of another is to view it with a "distorted lens" (P2, S1). Other cultures have entirely different circumstances and values that can't be appropriately understood within the framework of the majority culture.

In response to this criticism, a second proposal is made. It holds that cultures should be studied with a neutral stance: a culture shouldn't be judged by the value system of another. However, the methods of Western culture (things like anthropology and social science) are still used. The final paragraph criticizes this second proposal. This criticism holds that Western methods used in this approach still apply a Western value system to evaluating other cultures. The Western methods place value on empirical, scientific information, and this inevitably frustrates an attempt to understand any culture that doesn't share these values. The passage concludes without the author ever explicitly agreeing with either proposal or criticism.

In passages that use the Describing a Debate Meta-Structure, the main point is generally a description of both sides of the debate (or the assertion that there is a debate). Since there isn't a part of the passage that succinctly summarizes the debate for us, we can come up with our own description. Thus, our main point will look something like this: "Proposals for implementing multicultural education in the U.S. and Canada have been met with skepticism about their ability to promote a genuine understanding of other cultures."

*As is often the case, you could apply other Meta-Structures to this passage. You could argue that this is a Problem/Solution passage (problem: how to promote multicultural education) as long as you recognize that the author doesn't endorse either solution. You could even call this an Old Approach/New Approach passage, with the two proposals for promoting multicultural education standing in for the two approaches. Again, we'll need to understand that the author doesn't endorse either approach. Many test-takers view this as a Criticizing a Viewpoint passage. But because the author isn't doing the criticizing, we don't think this is the best fit for this passage.

The debate that the author presents us with is relatively straightforward: there are some proposals and there are some criticisms of those proposals. The difficulty of this passage comes with identifying what the author believes. If the author agreed with either of the proposals, we might say that this is a Rebutting Critics passage, but the author doesn't do that. Likewise, if the author had sided with the critics, we could say that the passage follows a Criticizing a Viewpoint structure, but again, the author doesn't.

In fact, a closer look shows that the author is deliberate in their neutrality. Through phrases such as "critics … argue as follows" (P4, S1) and "according to this objection" (P4, S6), the author is distancing themselves from the perspectives that the passage discusses. The arguments described are those of the critics, not the author. That's why this passage is best thought of as a Describing a Debate passage. Realizing that the voice of the author is minimal and descriptive rather than evaluative will certainly earn us some points as we jump into the questions.