LSAT 145 – Section 4 – Question 18

LSAT 145 - Section 4 - Question 18

December 2015

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT145 S4 Q18
+LR
Inference +Inf
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
A
10%
162
B
9%
157
C
5%
158
D
50%
167
E
27%
164
153
165
177
 +Hardest 148.528 +SubsectionMedium

Live Commentary

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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. But one also needs to learn how sounds are symbolically represented by means of letters; otherwise, phonemic awareness will not translate into the ability to read an alphabetic language. Yet many children who are taught by the whole-language method, which emphasizes the ways words sound, learn to read alphabetic languages.

Summary

In order to read an alphabetic language, one must have phonemic awareness and have learned how sounds are symbolically represented by means of letters.

Many children who are taught using the whole-language method learn to read alphabetic languages.

Very Strongly Supported Conclusions

Many children who are taught using the whole-language method have phonemic awareness and have learned how sounds are symbolically represented by means of letters. (This must be true, because many children who are taught using the whole-language method can read an alphabetic language, which implies that they have what’s required to read an alphabetic language.)

A
The whole-language method invariably succeeds in teaching awareness of how spoken language can be broken into component sounds.

We don’t know whether the whole-language method is ever successful in teaching how spoken language can be broken into component sounds. We know that many children who are taught using this method can learn how spoken language is broken into component sounds, but we don’t know whether they learned this from the whole-language method.

B
When the whole-language method succeeds in teaching someone how to represent sounds by means of letters, that person acquires the ability to read an alphabetic language.

We know that learning how sounds are represented by means of letters is one necessary condition for reading an alphabetic language. But we don’t know that it’s sufficient. In fact, phonemic awareness is another requirement, so if someone doesn’t have phonemic awareness, they won’t be able to read, even if they understand how sounds are represented by letters.

C
Those unable to read an alphabetic language lack both phonemic awareness and the knowledge of how sounds are symbolically represented.

Not supported, because someone who can’t read an alphabetic language might be lacking some other necessary condition that we don’t know about. It’s possible they have phonemic awareness and knowledge of how sounds are represented by letters, but still can’t read for some unknown other reason.

D
Some children who are taught by the whole-language method are not prevented from learning how sounds are represented by means of letters.

Must be true, becaue we know many children taught using the whole-language method can read alphabetic languages. So they must understand how sounds are represented by means of letters.

E
The whole-language method succeeds in teaching many children how to represent sounds symbolically by means of letters.

Not supported, because we don’t know that the whole-language method is how many children who learn to read alphabetic languages came to understand how sounds are represented by letters. It’s possible that they learned this through something else besides the whole-language method. In other words, just because they were taught using the whole-language method does not imply that this method is how they learned what’s necessary to read alphabetic languages.

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LSAT PrepTest 145 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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