Q25 - Native speakers perceive sentences

[mymansupa]

I'm seeing why (E) is correct but can someone please explain it to me because the double negatives ALWAYS give me a hard time... I get about 50% correct BUT I waste valuable time... I ask so many questions to myself when I do figure it out... Thanks

[cyruswhittaker]

I think that rather than focusing on the inherent confusion with double negatives, it might be helpful to focus on working from "wrong to right" in order to quickly eliminate wrong answers, and since this is a necessary assumption question, recognize the gap in the argument and also use the negation technique to determine if the answer choice, when negated, attacks the argument.

The argument attempts to show that the native speakers' perception is innacurate ("an illustion") by using the fact that another group, the travelers, have a different perception.

But this is a faulty argument; it is never shown that the travelers' perception is more accurate or correct than the natives.

Choice (E) presents a necessary assumption for the argument by saying that the native speakers' perceptions are not more accurate than those who don't know the language (and hence the travelers). This would have to be true or else the argument would fall apart.

[mymansupa]

Thank you so much... you made perfect sense... remarkable explanation...

[skapur777]

I'm sorry but I still fail to understand the answer

Maybe I should try explaining my reasoning:

A, B, and C I eliminated right off the bat.

A- The issue is that the native speakers perception of sounds are an illusion. If anything this strengthens it, because the native speakers perceptions might be faulty themselves!
B- I eliminated this one because it hints at the idea that the traveler's perceptions aren't accurate
C- I didn't understand the relevance of this answer choice so I quickly eliminated.
D- I picked this and this is my reasoning for it being incorrect: If accomplished non-native speakers didn't perceive sentences as streams of sounds, then this could add to the evidence that the perceptions of native speakers (and people who speak language correctly) is more correct than those who do not. However, if you negate this, then you get evidence that DOES seem to have to be assumed? I'm confused by this answer choice. According to the negation,

Accomplished non-natives DO perceive sentences in streams of sounds, and this gives credibility to the idea that native speakers are illusionary percepts...they seem to be the only ones who perceive sentences as separate words. Does this make the argument fall apart? I'm confused....

E- This is correct because it cannot be the case that the natives are more accurate. But I'm still unsatisfied. What if they are JUST as accurate? I guess I'm not used to assumption questions where the right answer doesn't make the argument bulletproof...

[giladedelman]

Okay, let me try to demystify this one.

It seems like we're all on the same page when it comes to the argument core and what it assumes:

travelers who don't know a language hear it as an uninterrupted stream ---> native speakers' perception of language as individual words is an illusion

Assumption: the travelers' perception is more accurate than the native speakers'.

I agree with your analysis of answers (A) and (B).

(C) might strengthen the argument, because it suggests that a non-native speaker is paying closer attention, but it's certainly not necessary to assume this. We'd have to make an additional assumption that paying closer attention leads to more accurate perceptions.

(D) is incorrect because it is not at all clear how it affects the argument. If it's true, then it means accomplished non-native speakers hear things the same way as native speakers. Okay, but what we want to figure out is, is this perception an illusion or not? The core is really about travelers vs. native speakers, so whether accomplished non-native speakers agree with the first group or the second group doesn't help us determine which group is correct.

(E) is correct because the argument needs to assume that native speakers' perceptions are not more accurate than those of people who don't know the language. If we negate this -- native speakers' perceptions are more accurate -- then the argument falls apart.

You make a good point about the nature of necessary assumptions: they do not have to make the argument bulletproof. Often, they only get us part of the way to the conclusion. Though in this case, I'm not sure how the two groups' perceptions could be equally accurate -- don't we have a binary choice?

Anyway, I hope that helps clear this one up for you.

[daijob]

I'm a little confused by the question...
So are the "native speakers" and "travelers" the same people in the stimulus?
So when they perceive sentences of their language, X happens and when they go to foreign countries they perceive language differently (Y happens), and the author concludes X is illusion?
Or it does not matter whether it is the same person or not??
Also Im still not sure why A is wrong...

Thank you

[rinagoldfield]

Thanks for your post, Daijob.

Native speakers and travelers are NOT the same in this question. Maybe it will help clarify things to make them a little more concrete. Here’s my concrete rewrite of the argument:

Premise1: Local Parisians hear French sentences as separate words.
Premise2: American tourists in Paris hear French sentences as a stream of sound with no separate words.
Conclusion: Parisians hear an illusion when they hear separate words within sentences.

The essential assumption is that what the Parisians hear is wrong, while what the American tourists hear is right. The author overlooks the possibility that the stream of sound is, in fact, the illusion.

(A) talks about understanding, while the argument is about illusion. (A) supports the idea that the American tourists don’t understand French, but we kind of already know that.