Princeton Review MCAT Exam 1 CARS

The author most likely describes Clarke's argument regarding the concept of subculture in order to:

B. Acknowledge theoretical challenges presented by the term which will partially addressed later in the paragraph. In paragraph 3 the author discusses Clarke's objection to the term "subculture". He then goes on to say that while the "concept is not without problems" it still has value, and that we need to look at and clarify the empirical and hermeneutic aspects.

It can be inferred from the passage that the authors believe which of the following?

B. It is possible to successfully determine which characteristics of a task actually produce a change in performance -See paragraph 3. The authors believe that the characteristics included in their proposal (which is referred to but not described in the passage) are those that produce performance changes

Passage 6 The New Critics argue that structuralist analysis poses an anti-intellectual threat to literature's existence. Which of the following examples, if true, would LEAST strengthen the argument?

C. Women's Studies scholars increasingly make use of literary analyses of Medieval poetry and plays to explore the gender norms of the period - This would NOT strengthen the New Critics' claim. The New Critics' basic argument with the "structuralists" is that structuralists take ideas from other disciplines and use those belief systems to teach or understand literature. This choice goes in the opposite direction; scholars in Women's Studies are using literature to understand issues within the field of Women's Studies. the author's discussion in paragraph 6 suggests that this would not be seen by the new critics as evidence of a threat.

An article in behavioral psychology journal makes the claim that all systems of taxonomic classification are fundamentally based on one or more theoretical foundations. This article most challenges which of the author's claims as indicated in the passage

A. A task classification system can be found in which the determination of the effect of a task on performance is not dependent on the use of any particular theoretical construct -If the journal article's claim that all taxonomic classification is based on one or more theories is valid, then all task classification systems are inherently biased. This is inconsistent with the author's argument that theoretical neutrality is necessity (paragraph 3). Finally, the author states that a theoretically neutral system is one in which task characteristics are not determined or defined by a particular theoretical approach

Passage 2 The authors make all of the following claims about Bergum's classification of continuous work tasks EXCEPT the Bergum's taxonomy:

A. Included production line tasks in his study on how division of attention affects the performance of monotonous work - This claim is NOT made in the passage; this choice confuses arousal theory with theories that study the division of attention. Bergum's work was based on arousal theory (paragraph 2) and paragraph 1 contrasts arousal theory with "theories concerned with division of attention"

A guide to academic writing identifies the intended reader as a hypothetical professor. What bearing would this have on the author's argument?

A. It would challenge the idea that academic discourse proceeds without reference to an actual reader -See paragraph 1. Since a hypothetical professor is identified as the intended reader of the academic guide, the existence of this reference contradicts the author's argument.

Passage 5 Based on the passage, it is reasonable to conclude that the masks of the Dan tribe differ form those of the Yoruba Gelade in that a Dan mask:

A. May accurately describe the role of the person who wears it -The author describes the Dan and Yoruba masks in paragraphs 3 and 4. Among the Dan, a judge wears a judge's mask. Among the Yoruba, masks are used as performance costumes, and nothing more. In the Dan community, the mask represents the actual role of the person wearing it. In the Yoruba community, the role represented by the mask is make-believe.

Passage 3 The authors offers no supporting evidence for the claim that:

A. Soaps have been used for thousands of years, everywhere in the world -See the final paragraph. This claim is not supported in the passage by evidence.

Passage 8 Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?

A. Subcultures are a common phenomenon in modern society, especially among the young, and therefore the concept of "subculture" is a useful part of sociological study - Paragraph 1 introduces the idea of a subculture and states that subcultures exist in all modern complex societies, while the last paragraph focuses on youth subculture. Paragraphs 2 and 3 argue that the concept, while imperfect, is still useful. In sum, this choice includes all the major themes in the passage and is consistent with the author's position.

Passage 4 It is reasonable to infer that the author of the passage would agree with which of the following about the role of entertainment in psychoanalysis?

C. Any entertainment derived from constructing coherent yet unfounded narratives have relatively little therapeutic value. -In the final paragraph the author argues that good therapy, "far from presenting the patient with a well-made story...seeks to destroy the story that the patient has for a long time believed to be the story of his life." While the author does not explicitly deny that therapy can be entertaining, she does deny Spence's argument (described in paragraph 4) that entertainment derived from constructing falsely coherent narratives has therapeutic value.

According to the passage, subcultures may perform or entail all of the following functions EXCEPT:

C. Providing a source of self-identity isolated from the influence of mainstream media -The author indicates in the first paragraph that mainstream will always have an effect: "Subcultures also have a relationship to the overall dominant culture which, because of its pervasiveness, in particular through the mass media, is unavoidable"

The author most likely uses the term "hermeneutic" (paragraph 3) to refer to the :

C. Significance of a subculture to its members -This is a good paraphrase of the author's statement: "There is also the hermeneutic aspect of cultural analysis-what the subculture "means." That is, the meaning of a subculture would entail the significance of the subculture to its members

The author blames all of the following for contributing to the abstraction of audience in rhetoric EXCEPT:

C. The changing attitudes of eighteenth and nineteenth century orators - See paragraph 1. This is a trap based on the passage's mention of eighteenth and nineteenth century oratory; the passage does not discuss the orators themselves

Passage 1: In a scholarly article directed towards teachers and school administrators, a writer arguing against educating children as if they are miniature adults incorporate several relevant case histories and concludes with recommendations for more developmentally appropriate interactions with children. It would be most reasonable to infer that this writer would agree with which of the following statements from the passage?

D. "Essential to rhetoric, then, is a notion of audience as person or persons whom the speaker or writer hopes to influence" - The writer referred to in the question stem speaks to a specific audience (teachers and administrators) and seeks to influence them (with recommendations for how to best educate children) . Therefore, based on paragraph 4 (where the statement in this choice appears), you can infer that this writer would be most likely to agree with the statement in this answer choice.

Based on the information in the passage, it is likely that Donald Spence would argue that the distinction between historical and narrative truth:

D. Is helpful for recognizing the discrepancy between what psychoanalysis claims to offer patients and what it can actually provide -According to the author, the distinction between these two kinds of reality undergirds Spence's entire argument about the true nature of psychoanalysis, as both patient and psychotherapist confuse narrative reality for historical reality (see paragraph 1). Note that Spence believes that psychoanalysis "unwittingly" deals with narrative truth, and that patient and therapist "naively and incorrectly assume" that they are recovering real historical truth.

With the phrase "stylizing and reifying the writer's audience" (paragraph 1), the author most likely means to indicate:

D. Teaching writing appropriate for a broad, generic audience rather than for a targeted, defined population. - The author's purpose in the first paragraph is to discuss several causes for the increasing abstraction of the audience: that is, writing without a specific intended audience in mind (the equivalent of an audience for a speech). The author argues that one cause of this abstraction was literacy programs that taught how to write words that would be acceptable to everyone, that is, a broad or generic audience. See also in which the author continues the discussion of the "standardizing" effect of the schools

Passage 7 The central concern of the passage is:

C. To define the usefulness and limitations of the study of logic

The author believes that the "brave attempts to examine the logic of ordinary language"

D. are not grounded in a systematic linguistic theory.