Question 1

According to the research on test anxiety and reading comprehension,students who are high in test anxiety tend to

Accepted Answer

A) report having above-average study skills. 
B) be similar to other students in making correct inferences from textbook material. 
C) perform poorly on multiple-choice tests that assess reading comprehension. 
D) spend less time studying their textbooks.

Question 2

The constructionist view of discourse comprehension is most likely to emphasize

Accepted Answer

A) a character's emotions and motivations. 
B) the meaning of each sentence,rather than inferences. 
C) the phonemes represented in the text. 
D) the fact that readers typically use a shallow level of processing.

Question 3

Your textbook discusses the topic of metacomprehension in young children.According to this discussion,

Accepted Answer

A) young children do not have the skills that they need,in order to use metacomprehension. 
B) teachers do not try hard enough to emphasize metacomprehension. 
C) the stories in the textbooks do not require metacomprehension. 
D) children's memory skills are very limited,because their working memory holds only two or three words at a time.

Question 4

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 5

According to the introductory discussion of the reading process,

Accepted Answer

A) reading appears to be a modular process. 
B) the average adult reads at the rate of about 100 words per minute. 
C) reading is a process that relies on a variety of other cognitive skills. 
D) most people can introspect accurately about the cognitive processes required when they read an isolated sentence.

Question 6

You hear that a friend works in a "small machinery store," and you do not know whether "small" describes the size of the store or the size of the machinery in the store.This situation is called

Accepted Answer

A) indirect access. 
B) a nested structure. 
C) pragmatics. 
D) ambiguity.

Question 7

When readers use the direct-access route to recognizing written words,

Accepted Answer

A) they learn to distinguish between a letter's distinctive features and its characteristic sound. 
B) they translate the visual stimuli into sound before locating a word's meaning. 
C) they recognize each word's syntactic function before they recognize its meaning. 
D) they recognize a word from the visual stimulus without having to translate first into sound.

Question 8

Part of Chapter 9 discusses a comparison between reading and listening to spoken language.When you read,you are

Accepted Answer

A) more likely to encounter error-free language. 
B) more likely to encounter nonverbal cues. 
C) less likely to re-scan the language input. 
D) less likely to detect clear-cut boundaries between words.

Question 9

English is more challenging than many other world languages because:

Accepted Answer

A) English words are much longer. 
B) English grammar is more challenging. 
C) English words are more difficult to recognize when they are spoken. 
D) English words have a greater number of irregular pronunciations.

Question 10

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 11

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 12

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 13

Which of the following topics would be most relevant for a psychologist who favors the cognitive-functional approach to language?

Accepted Answer

A) What kind of cues do listeners pick up on when determining whether a speaker is very enthusiastic about an idea,rather than just mildly enthusiastic? 
B) What kinds of rules do people use when they want to determine the deep structure of an ambiguous sentence? 
C) What is the function of each of the language areas of the brain,with respect to reading a question and formulating an answer? 
D) When do listeners take a modular approach to language,and when do they integrate language with other cognitive processes (e.g.,memory and problem solving)?

Question 14

Which of the following students provides the most accurate summary of the whole-language approach to reading?

Accepted Answer

A) Matthias: "Teachers should emphasize the meaning of a story,so that children would be eager to learn to read." 
B) Mark: "Teachers should emphasize the gestalt of each word,in other words,the whole word,rather than just a collection of letters." 
C) Becca: "Teachers should read interesting books to children,so that children can appreciate how stories are constructed." 
D) KayLyn: "Teachers should provide extensive background information on a story,before the children try to read the text."

Question 15

Your textbook discussed the research on test anxiety,study skills,and reading-comprehension scores in undergraduates.According to this research,

Accepted Answer

A) students who have high test anxiety tend to report having good study skills,but they still tend to perform poorly on reading-comprehension tests. 
B) students who have high test anxiety report having poor study skills. 
C) students who have high test anxiety do not differ from less anxious students on reading-comprehension tests. 
D) students who have high test anxiety do not differ from low-anxiety students when making inferences from textbook material.

Question 16

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 17

Which of the following research topics would be most likely to emphasize the discourse aspect of language?

Accepted Answer

A) Do people create shorter sentences when requesting something from a friend,rather than a stranger? 
B) At what age do children begin to create two-word phrases? 
C) Does the phonics approach increase children's ability to pronounce English words? 
D) Under what circumstances will students be able to identify a theme in a short story?

Question 18

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 19

According to the introduction to Chapter 9,

Accepted Answer

A) the speaking vocabulary of the average North American is between 10,000 and 12,000 words. 
B) it would take about 2,000 times the age of the earth to say all the potential 20-word English sentences that could be generated. 
C) whereas memory is an active process,language comprehension is primarily passive. 
D) the term syntax refers to the sound of spoken language.

Question 20

According to Chomsky's approach,the relationship between "The dog chased the cat" and "The cat was chased by the dog" can be described as

Accepted Answer

A) one deep structure with two surface structures 
B) two deep structures with one surface structure 
C) two deep structures and two surface structures 
D) two deep structures linked by a transformational rule

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