The passages given below are followed by a set of questions. Choose the most…
2023
The passages given below are followed by a set of questions. Choose the most appropriate answer to each question.
Ask an American schoolchild what he or she is learning in school these days and you might even get a reply, provided you ask it in Spanish. But don’t bother, here’s the answer: Americans nowadays are not learning any of the things that we learned in our day, like reading and writing. Apparently, these are considered fusty old subjects, invented by white males to oppress women and minorities.
What are they learning? In a Vermont college town, I found the answer sitting in a toy store book rack, next to typical kids’ books like ‘Heather Has Two Mommies and Daddy Is Dysfunctional’. It’s a teacher’s guide called ‘Happy To Be Me’, subtitled ‘Building Self, Esteem’.
Self-esteem, as it turns out, is a big subject in American classrooms. Many American schools see building it as important as teaching reading and writing. They call it “whole language” teaching, borrowing terminology from the granola people to compete in the education marketplace.
No one ever spent a moment building my self-esteem when I was in school. In fact, from the day I first stepped inside a classroom, my self-esteem was one big demolition site. All that mattered was “the subject,” be it geography, history, or mathematics. I was praised when I remembered that “near”, “fit”, “friendly”, “pleasing”, “like” and their opposites took the dative case in Latin. I was reviled when I forgot what a cosine was good for. Generally, I lived my school years beneath a torrent of castigation so consistent I eventually ceased to hear it, as people who live near the sea eventually stop hearing the waves.
Schools have changed. Reviling is out, for one thing. More important, subjects have changed. Whereas I learned English, modern kids learn something called “language skills.” Whereas I learned writing, modern kids learn something called “communication”. Communication, the book tells us, is seven percent words, 23 percent facial expression, 20 percent tone of voice, and 50 percent body language. So this column, with its carefully chosen words, would earn me at most, a grade of seven percent. That is if the school even gave out something as oppressive and demanding as grades.
The result is that, in place of English classes, American children are getting a course in How to ‘Win Friends and Influence People’. Consider the new attitude toward journal writing: I remember one high school English class when we were required to keep a journal. The idea was to emulate those great writers who confided in diaries, searching their souls and honing their critical thinking on paper.
‘Happy To Be Me’ states that journals are a great way for students to get in touch with their feelings. Tell students they can write one sentence or a whole page. Reassure them that no one, not even you, will read what they write. After the unit, hopefully, all students will be feeling good about them and will want to share some of their entries with the class.
There was a time when no self-respecting book for English teachers would use “great” or “hopefully” that way. Moreover, back then, the purpose of English courses (an antique term for “Unit”) was not to help students “feel good about themselves.” Which is good, because all that reviling didn't make me feel particularly good about anything.
According to the passage, the author implies that
- A.
Evaluating criteria are inappropriate nowadays.
- B.
This column does not meet the demanding evaluating criteria of today.
- C.
self-criticism has gone too far
- D.
Communication is a more comprehensive category than language skills.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
An ‘author implies’ question asks for a conclusion the passage strongly supports through its tone, contrasts, and details — but never states directly — while ruling out choices that merely restate a passage fact, reverse the author’s stance, or introduce an idea the passage never raises.
The passage sets up a running contrast between the author’s own schooling, judged by rigorous subject knowledge (‘oppressive and demanding’ as grades once were, per Latin cases and cosines), and today’s self-esteem-driven teaching. Its clearest illustration is the ‘communication’ formula — seven percent words versus ninety-three percent facial expression, tone, and body language — under which the author’s own carefully-worded column would score at most seven percent, with the author adding that this is ‘if the school even gave out something as oppressive and demanding as grades’ at all. By showing that a well-written piece is scored almost entirely on non-verbal cues, and that schools may not even grade in a meaningful way any more, the author is implying that the standards used to evaluate students today are not a sound or valid way to measure ability.
‘This column does not meet the demanding evaluating criteria of today’ reverses the passage’s contrast: the author calls the OLD, subject-based grading ‘oppressive and demanding,’ while presenting today’s self-esteem-driven approach as lenient, so calling today’s criteria ‘demanding’ runs the opposite way from what the passage shows.
‘Self-criticism has gone too far’ confuses self-ESTEEM with self-CRITICISM: the passage describes schools building students’ self-esteem through praise and non-judgment, never students criticizing themselves too harshly, so this is not the direction the passage discusses.
‘Communication is a more comprehensive category than language skills’ only echoes the passage’s terms ‘communication’ and ‘language skills’ without engaging its argument; the passage never ranks which term is the broader category, so this is not something the passage actually implies.
So the passage supports the idea that evaluating criteria are inappropriate nowadays.