Question 1

What general conclusion can we reach about making inferences during reading?

Accepted Answer

A)  People are generally reluctant to make inferences unless they are convinced that the inference is justified. 
B)  People consistently make inferences, especially if they have relatively poor metacomprehension skills. 
C)  People often make inferences, especially if they have expertise in the topic. 
D)  People are generally reluctant to make inferences unless someone specifically urges them to do so.

Question 2

According to the introduction on language comprehension (Chapter 9),

Accepted Answer

A)  language requires very little active processing of information; language comprehension is primarily automatic. 
B)  language can be described in terms of a relatively small number of specific tasks. 
C)  language is not closely related to other cognitive tasks. 
D)  we consult our background knowledge, which is related to language, so we can understand complex ideas.

Question 3

Which of the following students' statements provides the best summary of the information on aphasia?

Accepted Answer

A)  Uma: "People with Broca's aphasia have trouble expressing language; their language comprehension is normal." 
B)  John: "Contrary to popular opinion, Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia are virtually identical." 
C)  Lata: "People with Wernicke's aphasia produce large quantities of speech, but it often doesn't make sense; they also have trouble understanding speech." 
D)  Suzanne: "People with Wernicke's aphasia can understand instructions that involve a sequence of actions; people with Broca's aphasia cannot understand this kind of message."

Question 4

Chapter 9 discussed Noam Chomsky's theories about language. According to this discussion,

Accepted Answer

A)  Chomsky's theories emphasize that humans have inborn skills in language. 
B)  Chomsky's theories were useful to behaviorists, because his theories made predictions about observable language behavior. 
C)  Chomsky argues that children's language acquisition is possible because of their sophisticated working memory. 
D)  Chomsky argues that children's language skills depend on the linguistic rules that their parents teach them.

Question 5

Suppose that you are working with an elderly woman who had a stroke. She is looking at her radio, and you ask her if the radio is broken. With great effort, she says, "Not working." Based on this information, you would most likely suspect that she has

Accepted Answer

A)  pragmatic difficulties. 
B)  Broca's aphasia. 
C)  Wernicke's aphasia. 
D)  retrograde amnesia.

Question 6

The discussion of reading comprehension emphasized that people draw inferences during reading. For example, when people were reading a passage that contradicted an inference, they usually took longer to read it

Accepted Answer

A)  if the goal sentence was located near the contradictory material, rather than far away. 
B)  only if they were allowed a long processing time between reading the passage and judging it. 
C)  in both the "near" and the "far" conditions. 
D)  if they were novices, rather than experts.

Question 7

According to Chomsky's approach to language,

Accepted Answer

A)  the words that are actually spoken are called deep structure. 
B)  if two sentences have similar surface structure, they must also have similar deep structure. 
C)  ambiguity arises when a surface structure has two different deep structures. 
D)  when two different surface structures have the same deep structure, the two surface structures are called prototypes.

Question 8

In the sentence, "Chris called up the psychology professor," what is the surface structure?

Accepted Answer

A)  "Chris called professor." 
B)  "The psychology professor was called up by Chris." 
C)  "Chris called up the psychology professor." 
D)  "Chris (subject) called up (verb) the psychology professor (object)."

Question 9

When we make an inference during reading, we use our _____ in order to access information that is not explicitly stated in the written text.

Accepted Answer

A)  phonetic knowledge 
B)  syntactic knowledge 
C)  world knowledge 
D)  logical reasoning ability

Question 10

According to the discussion of neurolinguistics,

Accepted Answer

A)  for most people-but not all-language is primarily localized in the left hemisphere of the brain. 
B)  for most people-but not all-language is primarily localized in the right hemisphere of the brain. 
C)  for most right-handers, language is localized in the right hemisphere of the brain. 
D)  for most people, language is processed almost identically by both hemispheres.

Question 11

If you use the direct-access route while reading,

Accepted Answer

A)  you can recognize a word directly from its component sounds. 
B)  you directly access easy words through the visual route; you directly access difficult words through the auditory route. 
C)  your teacher probably emphasized how a word is pronounced. 
D)  you can recognize a word based on the visual stimulus of the letters in a word.

Question 12

You have learned that if you want to combine a noun such as girl with a verb such as run, the noun precedes the verb, and you must add an s to form girl runs. The rules that govern this kind of procedure are known as

Accepted Answer

A)  semantics. 
B)  phonemics. 
C)  pragmatics. 
D)  grammar.

Question 13

Eye tracking studies such as the experiment by Tanenhaus and colleagues suggest that our interpretation of the grammar of a sentence

Accepted Answer

A)  depends primarily on our level of experience with the language's syntax. 
B)  depends on the linguistic context of the sentence within a paragraph or story. 
C)  can be influenced by nonlinguistic context such as the visual environment. 
D)  cannot be influenced by nonlinguistic environments unless one's knowledge of the language is weak.

Question 14

Suppose that you ask a stranger what time it is, and he produces several wordy sentences that don't seem to make sense. Without knowing additional information, you would suspect that he has

Accepted Answer

A)  Wernicke's aphasia. 
B)  Broca's aphasia. 
C)  retrograde amnesia. 
D)  dyslexia.

Question 15

Adults tend to read tongue twisters more slowly than other sentences of the same length and complexity. This observation

Accepted Answer

A)  supports the constructive approach to language. 
B)  illustrates the importance of word boundaries in a reading task. 
C)  illustrates the importance of context in determining the meaning of a word. 
D)  supports the indirect-access route approach reading.

Exam 9: Language I: Introduction to Language and Language Comprehension