Columnist: The winner of this year's national spelling

[dilipgmat]

Columnist: The winner of this year's national spelling bee won by correctly spelling the spoken word Ursprache, which means "fame" in German. Given the richness of our language, why must we resort to words taken from modern foreign languages to challenge our best spellers? Ursprache is listed in our dictionary, as are words from many other foreign languages, but future spelling bees should limit themselves to words in our dictionary that have been anglicized in all aspects because spelling English words, not knowledge of linguistics and international phonetics, is the point of these contests.

Which of the following can most reasonably be inferred from the argument above?

A.The spelling contest winner knew how to spell most of the anglicized words in the dictionary.

B.Foreign words are more difficult than anglicized words for all contestants to spell.

C.Spelling contestant winners should be determined by their facility with all aspects of language.

D.To spell foreign words, contestants must recognize the language and know its pronunciation.

E.The English language contains more borrowed words than most other languages.

The Q is from the MGCAT .

The answer is D .
The inference should be with respect to the Aurthor's concern abt the use of foreign language words that contestants are given.

In that case C should be the answer !!!
Kindly correct me if i am wrong .. Thanks in Advance !!

[RonPurewal]

this is an inference question. this means that you're looking for a statement that is REQUIRED TO BE TRUE.

choice (d) is the only statement that, according to this passage, MUST be true. note the mention of "knowledge of linguistics and international phonetics" in the passage; this implies that correct spelling of foreign (non-english) words requires such knowledge.

choice (c) is not required by the passage; it's nearly impossible for a statement containing "should" to be required. moreover, and far worse, this statement is actually contrary to the spirit of the passage!
the main idea of the passage is that english spelling bees should be, basically, limited to native english words, and that many aspects of language - including the foreign influences on spelling - should be EXCLUDED from spelling contests. this is precisely the opposite of what is posited in choice (c).

hope this helps.