#11 - Lecturer: If I say, “I tried to get my work done on

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[allicr]

Hi there,

While doing this preptest I selected C. I can see how A is a better answer, however I am wondering what is exactly wrong with C. They seem to be similar answer choices, but I think C is wrong because it refers to non-verbal cues and we don't necessarily know the person was using non-verbal cues to get their message across. Does it have more to do with how the words in the sentence relate to one another and this is what A describes?

Thanks for any help on this!

[Brook Miscoski]

Alli,

The Lecturer indicates that our experience of how people use words affects our interpretation of the words. He says that when someone starts talking about how hard he tried, everyone knows that person failed. That leads to (A)--our understanding of how conversation works includes more than just the dictionary meanings of words. It also eliminates B,D,E. The puzzle is how to eliminate (C).

A "non-verbal cue" means something other than the words themselves. For instance, the pitch of my voice can indicate confusion, and that is a non-verbal cue. If I make a face while I speak, or if I angle my body, wave my arms, etc., those are all non-verbal cues.

The author doesn't give an example of a non-verbal cue. What he is saying is that people who succeed just say it, they don't use the word "tried" to describe their efforts. The cue that indicates that they failed is a verbal cue.

[Iam181]

HI,

Would you please explain why answer choice E is wrong? I was left with A and E, but ended up choosing E.

Thank you

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Iam181,

What the stimulus of this question describes is actually an example of successful communication. The example the speaker gives is one in which "you would correctly understand" what the speaker is saying. Since your understanding would be correct, there has been successful communication. In other words, the speaker intends to convey something more than what the literal words mean, and the listener correctly understands that. The stimulus goes on to say this example is "typical" of how conversation works, meaning the typical conversation is successful. Given that the stimulus is focused on a successful example of conversation, we do not have any basis for inferring that listeners would not typically be successful in conversation (which is what answer choice E implies). Additionally, answer choice E refers to the "knowledge" that is required for successful conversation, but the stimulus does not discuss "knowledge," and the specific "knowledge" required for such conversation. Since the stimulus does not provide any discussion of that issue, that answer cannot be supported by the stimulus.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[lounalola]

I was between A and D, and I ended up choosing A. Can someone explain why D is wrong

[Adam Tyson]

Answer D has a number of problems. For one thing, the stimulus tells us nothing about how often this sort of thing occurs. For another, while the stimulus indicates that the meaning of a statement may be more than simply the literal meaning of the words, that doesn't mean the person making the statement didn't intend to convey greater meaning. The example illustrates that very nicely, because the author is saying the person making that statement is almost certainly intending to convey something more than just the meaning of the words themselves. They intended to convey the idea that they did not finish their work on time. So, in that sense, answer D is the opposite of what the stimulus demonstrates.