Questions+7-8+(Tess+Jacobson)

Question 7: This is a question about the organization and development of a part of the passage. In order to answer this question, one must know the difference between the first word of every option (accumulating, broadening, intensifying, contrasting, drawing). One must also know/be able to identify the author's message in this part of the passage (i.e. that changes in language are evident in a personal context as well as an international one). The test-taker should be able to identify this shift in ideas in the passage. A: Wrong answer; there is nothing in the passage that explicitly discusses intentional/unintentional changes in language B: Correct answer; the third paragraph discusses the personal impact of changes in language and the fourth discusses it on a larger, international scale C: Distractor; references to "larger communications that antagonize" are evident in the passage and this is a tempting option, however, "spelling variations that annoy" is a less accurate description than that in option B D: Wrong answer; no distinction shown between social concord/discord E: Wrong answer; no references to the business world in the passage

Question 8: This is a purpose/message question. In order to answer the question, one must know what nationalism is and be able to identify the references to nationalism in the passage. One must also be able to identify the examples in the fourth paragraph and link them to the author's purpose/message in that paragraph. A: Wrong answer; no references to language surviving political turmoil B: Correct answer; fourth paragraph discusses how language is used to show nationalistic opinions C: Wrong answer; no references to "generalizations of language use" in passage D: Wrong answer; no discussion of a time element in the passage E: Wrong answer/possible distractor; there is a discussion of the dominance of America, but nothing about more or less linguistic changes