12.Practice.Tests.for.the.SAT_2015-2016_1128p

528
Section 5
Practice Test Six
Questions 13-24 are based on the following passages.
Both of the passages below are taken from articles on
social science. Passage 1 is excerpted from an essay on
language and intelligence. Passage 2 is taken from a news
publication introducing readers to some of the ideas of
social psychology.
Passage I
At some point in your life, you have likely
heard a character on TV or in a book say something
along the lines of, "The thing that separates
Line humans from the animals is ...." You may have
(5) even heard such a sentiment completed in more
than one way-some say it is our large brains,
others our opposable thumbs, and still others
claim it is our ability to use tools. While all of
these attributes sound reasonable enough, none
(1 O) of them is truly unique to the human speciesthere
are plenty of large mammals that have bigger
brains than human beings, and we share our
opposable thumbs and tool-using capabilities with
several.of our fellow primates. No, I would argue
(15) instead that the true thing that makes humans
qualitatively different from other animals is our
ability to use language.
Though there are people who claim that various
phenomena from dolphin sounds to bird songs
(20) are "language," these arguments are typically confusions
in terminology at best. There is no doubt
that these noises serve to communicate ideas from
animal to animal, but to most linguists the idea of
language involves a means of communicating that
(25) is more complex, rule based, and extensible-able
to capture complicated ideas even with a relatively
limited vocabulary.
Now, it seems reasonable to suppose that if
human beings are several times more intelligent
(30) than these other creatures, our communications
would be correspondingly more complex.
However, I believe that the converse is actually
the case-that the appearance of great intelligence
in human beings is partly a product of our natu-
(35) ral affinity for language. Language acquisition is
not merely a function of our general reasoning
capabilities; it is accomplished by particular and
unique regions of our brains during the first seven
or so years of childhood. Anyone studying a
( 40) second language knows how difficult it really is
to achieve fluency in a foreign tongue using only
our general cognitive abilities, after this "language
acquisition device" has shut itself off.
As much as we'd like to believe it, language
(45) is not mankind's ingenious invention; it is our
genetic birthright, and its acquisition is as instinctive
and unconscious as salmon swimming upriver
to spawn or geese flying south for the winter.
Knowing this leads me to wonder: If other pri-
(50) mates or dolphins could speak as we do, enabling
them to share ideas and pass on their accumulated
knowledge rather than learning it anew with each
successive generation, would they really be so different
from us?
Passage 2
(55) Some of our nation's Founding Fathers would
be appalled at the ease with which contemporary
Americans accept the idea of political parties.
Calling them "factions," these framers of
the Constitution sincerely believed that parties
(60) were a threat to the creation of a true democracy.
Although the bipartisan system has not yet
brought our republic crashing down around our
ears, we might indeed have cause to wonder how
the party system arose in the first place. After
(65) all, there seems to be no essential connection
between, say, two issues like taxation and capital
punishment; nevertheless, most of the nation's
voters huddle under one of the two all-encompassing
ideological umbrellas held out by our two
(70) dominant political parties. Indeed, the endurance
and tenacity of the two-party system might initially
seem puzzling to the budding student of political
science, but to those who have background in
anthropology or social psychology it should come
(75) as no surprise.
After all, the human being is at heart a social
animal; like dogs and gorillas, we are pack creatures,
devoted by nature to mutual cooperation in
order to increase the chances of survival for our
(80) entire group. Nowadays, we congregate in societies
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