Logical Reasoning

PT145 · S4 · Q18 Psychologist: Phonemic awareness

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Psychologist: Phonemic awareness, or the knowledge that spoken language can be broken into component sounds, is essential for learning to read an alphabetic language.

Statements

On Must Be True questions, we're primarily scanning for Conditional words (otherwise math-y or causal ideas).

The conditional wording we're hoping to see in this paragraph is "essential" (necessary indicator, Required = Right) "needs" (necessary indicator, Required = Right) "otherwise" (if-not)

Learning to Phonemic read alphabetic → awareness language

Learning to Learn how sounds read alphabetic → symbolically represented language

~Learn how sounds → ~Ability to symbolically read alphabetic represented language

This third conditional, the "otherwise" one, is essentially the contrapositive of the 2nd conditional. It tells a story about phonemic awareness being the culprit, but it terminates at the idea of ~Learning to read alphabet. So we probably don't need to think hard about that one.

The first two conditional ideas don't chain together, but they allow us to say that Learning to Read Alphabet requires two things: - phonemic awareness - learn how sounds become letters

Can we apply this conditional to any facts? Did the statements tell us about anyone who Learned to Read Alphabet?

Yes, the kids being taught the whole-language method, are learning to read alphabets.

So according to our rules, what can we infer about them?

Goal

The kids being taught the whole-language method must be achieving the two things we know are required in order to learn an alphabet: - they're getting phonemic awareness - they're learning how sounds are symbolically represented by means of letters

18.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the psychologist's statements?

  1. The whole-language method invariably succeeds

    Too Strong: invariably

    The final sentence says that many children taught the whole-language method successfully learn languages (which means they get phonemic awareness, which means they know that spoken language can be broken down into component sounds). But where's this answer getting invariably from. Way too strong!

    7% picked this

  2. When the whole-language method succeeds

    Reversal

    There are a couple problems with this answer, but structurally it's trying to make a move from a Necessary condition for success (representing sounds by means of letters) to a guarantee of success (now they can read an alphabetic language). We know can read alph lang → learned sounds-to-letters This says learned sounds-to-letters → can read alph lang

    10% picked this

  3. Those unable to read an

    Illegal Opposite

    We know, Learned → Phonemic Learned ABC lang awareness and Sounds-2-Ltrs In other words, ABC → PA and L2S This answer is doing an illegal negation: ~ABC → ~PA and ~L2S The only legal manipulation of the original statement is the contrapositive: ~PA or ~L2S → ~ABC

    4% picked this

  4. Correct

    Some children who are taught

    Why this is right

    It's super weak (some = at least 1), which is an attractive quality on Inference, Necessary Assumption, and Reading Comp. We know that many (at least 5) kids who were taught whole-language also learned to read ABC languages. Thus, we know that these whole-language kids have achieved Phonemic Awareness and Sounds-to-Letters (two requirements of learning to read an ABC language). Therefore, it's clear in their case that the whole-language method didn't prevent them from learning Sounds-to-Letters. So this answer must be true.

    Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    54% picked this

  5. The whole-language method succeeds in

    Out of Scope: succeeds (causal)

    This is super sneaky and mean. The last sentence doesn't actually give the whole-language method any causal credit for helping the kids to learn to read ABC languages. If I say some kids who are taught Geometry in middle school learn how to do a kickflip on their skateboard, am I saying that they learned kickflips in Geometry? LSAC put those two ideas near each other so that our brains would fill in a common sense speculation that the whole-language method was a causal factor in them learning to read alphabetic languages. But the sentence only tells us that many whole-language students learn to read ABC. It doesn't betray where these students learn to read ABC, or whether whole-language plays any role in that.

    25% picked this

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