In many bilingual communities of Puerto Rican Americans living in the mainland United States, people use both English and Spanish in a single conversation, alternating between them smoothly and frequently even within the same sentence. ████ █████████████████ ███████████████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ████████████ ███
Phenomenon ·Code-switching
Puerto Rican Americans use both English and Spanish in a single conversation, smoothly alternating between them.
Experimental Setup ·To test effects of domains on code-switching
Researchers create hypothetical situations with 2 congruent factors or 2 incongruent factors. Then, researchers ask students to determine the third factor and which mixture of language they would use.
Prompted with participants: parent and child and topic: how to be a good son or daughter. Students chose setting as home and language was Spanish only.
Family thought they spoke only English but they code-switched to Spanish (even when situational factors didn't change) to express certain attitudes like intimacy or humor more emphatically.
Passage Style
Phenomenon-hypothesis
Single position
7.
In the final sentence of ███ ████████ ███ ██████ ████████ ███ ██████ ████████ ███████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ █████ ██
Question Type
Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Structure
At the beginning of the last paragraph, the author asserts that sometimes, language switches occur “to achieve certain rhetorical effects.” The last sentence is offered to show that the family discussed in the last paragraph switched languages for rhetorical effect (to express intimacy or humor more emphatically).
This best captures the purpose as explained below the question stem.
b
show that reasons ███ ██████████████ ██████ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ███████
The last paragraph doesn’t involve different communities and different reasons for code-switching in these different communities. Since (B) doesn’t happen in the last paragraph, it’s not the purpose of the last sentence.
The last sentence doesn’t present evidence that conflicts with researchers’ conclusion about why the family code-switched. It supports the conclusion that the family code-switched for rhetorical effect.
d
refute the argument ████ ███████████ ███████ ███████ ████ ██████████████
The author never suggests that it’s incorrect to believe most code-switching is explained by situational factors. So (D) can’t be the purpose of the last sentence.
e
explain how it █████ ██ ████ ███ ██████ ███████ ██████ ██ ██████ █████ ███ ██ ███████
The last sentence involves the family members’ explanation for why they code-switched. This doesn’t help explain why the family members didn’t realize that they code-switched until it was pointed out to them.
Difficulty
75% of people who answer get this correct
This is a moderately difficult question.
It is somewhat easier than other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%138
150
75%161
Analysis
Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Structure
Phenomenon-hypothesis
Science
Single position
Answer Popularity
PopularityAvg. score
a
75%
165
b
2%
156
c
5%
157
d
10%
157
e
7%
159
Question history
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