21 February 2024

Daily practice questions for CLAT - (21 February 2024)



Lila Gleitman while driving with her year-old daughter, advised her daughter to "hold on tight" at a tricky turn. The toddler responded: "Isn't that 'tightly?" It was a turning point in the young scholar's career. She had already switched from English literature to classics, in which she quickly became bored of her teacher's digressions on Athenian society (she wanted to get back to grammar). Realising that her two-year-old already had an understanding of language made Gleitman want to get into her child's head and those of other children. Gleitman, who died on August 8th at the age of 91, turned children's learning of language into a research career that helped define psycholinguistics, a field that hardly existed before. Her early interest coincided with the emergence in the 1950s of Noam Chomsky, a frequent visitor to the University of Pennsylvania when she began taking courses there. Until then linguistics largely involved concentrating on what people said, shying away from what they might be thinking. The two scholars' work and that of others instead considered the mental systems that might produce the sentences you hear, which are shaped by abstract rules that speakers may not even know that they know An early piece of Gleitman's research, for example, investigated small children's "telegraphic" speech, in which many words are left out: a toddler might say "throw ball" rather than "throw me the ball". This seems to imply that the child's knowledge is primitive. But she found that children nonetheless comply with instructions better when their parents use adult-style English than when they mimic their offspring. She and her colleagues concluded that youngsters know more than they can say. As the learning process goes on, children deploy some remarkable strategies. They often seem to correctly guess what a word means after hearing it just once. The physical environment is an obvious spur (as when they hear "dog" and see one at the same time). But how would a child guess the meaning of the verb in "I believed that he lost his keys"? Gleitman noticed that the sentence structure is identical to those with other verbs that mean similar things (i.e., refer to states of mind): saw, remembered, imagined, forgot, worried and doubted. This intuitive aid helps children learn astonishingly quickly, a process she called "syntactic bootstrapping" Her work also had implications for the debate over whether a person's native language strongly influences how they think or even what they can think. She was convinced that all languages shared fundamental traits, forged by the nature of the human mind itself, the effects of using a particular one on cognition were modest and fleeting. The notion that speaking a different language entails a profoundly different way of thinking was romantic and tempting, but she would not buy it.

Question1:- Gleitman was also ___ other scholars. Many of them were women, for whom she was a pioneer, beginning her own research in the early 1960s while bringing up her own family.
Which of the following areas did Lila Gleitman mainly work on?
  • A. Children’s learning and understanding of their language.
  • B. Adults learning of their language and how they speak.
  • C. Origin of native languages
  • D. English literature to classics.
Answer is A is correct. The passage states that "Realising that her two-year-old already had an understanding of language made Gleitman want to get into her child's head and those of other children. Gleitman, who died on August 8th at the age of 91, turned children’s learning of language into a research career that helped define psycholinguistics, a field that hardly existed before." Thus, option A is the correct answer. The rest of the options are unsuited in the context.
Question2:- Which of the following is a strategy kids deploy to learn?
  • A. They hear a word and try to guess the word
  • B. They click a picture of the object and write it down.
  • C. They ignore the physical environment of the object and concentrate on the object itself.
  • D. Kids are not intuitive and cannot learn on their own.
Answer is A is correct. The correct answer is option A. Options B and D are not mentioned in the passage, and thus do not qualify to be an answer. Option C is false as the passage states "As the learning process goes on, children deploy some remarkable strategies. They often seem to correctly guess what a word means after hearing it just once. The physical environment is an obvious spur (as when they hear "dog" and see one at the same time)." This passage also makes option A the correct choice.
Question3:- Before the work of Lila Gleitman in the field, what did linguistics as a discipline involve?
  • A. Linguistics was treated as a branch of English Literature and Folk studies.
  • B. Linguistics focused on what people said, and not on the thoughts behind the speech.
  • C. Linguistics was the study of the history of language and not how people talked.
  • D. Linguistics as a discipline was founded by Noam Chomsky and included what he taught.
Answer is B is correct. The passage states, "Her early interest coincided with the emergence in the 1950s of Noam Chomsky, a frequent visitor to the University of Pennsylvania when she began taking courses there. Until then linguistics largely involved concentrating on what people said, shying away from what they might be thinking." Nowhere has it stated that Chomsky invented linguistics. This makes option D invalid. Options A and C find no mention in the passage; therefore, they are ruled out. Option B is the correct choice.
Question4:- Which of the following is true according to Gleitman's research?
  • I. Children listen to instructions better when their parents use adult-style English instead of mimicking their offspring.
  • II. All languages have shared fundamental traits, which are forged by the nature of the human mind itself.
  • III. Lila Gleitman argues that youngsters deploy mundane strategies when learning
  • A. Only I
  • B. Only II
  • C. Only III
  • D. Both I and I
Answer is D is correct. The passage states "She was convinced that all languages shared fundamental traits, forged by the nature of the human mind itself". This makes statement I true. The passage states that this seems to imply that the child's knowledge is primitive. But she found that children nonetheless comply with instructions better when their parents use adult-style English than when they mimic their offspring. Statement III false. Refer to the lines, 'As the learning process goes on, children deploy some remarkable strategies.' Thus, statements I and II are true
Question5:- Which of the following phrase can complete the sentence correctly? Gleitman was also ____ other scholars
  • A. a prodigal mentor to
  • B. a middling mentor to
  • C. a run-of-the-mill mentor to
  • D. a prodigious mentor to
Answer is D is correct. The passage states that Lila Gleitman turned children’s learning of language into a research career that helped define psycholinguistics, a field that hardly existed before. One can conclude that she was a remarkable and exceptional person in her field. Also, the last line corroborates the fact; hence, 'prodigious', which means exceptional; or phenomenal, is the correct answer. 'Middling' and run-of-the-mill mean average, which goes against the information provided in the passage; thus, they are ruled out. 'Prodigal' means extravagant or reckless is irrelevant in the context; therefore it is ruled out.