CAT 2024 Question Paper | VARC Slot 3

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The passage below is accompanied by four questions. Based on the passage, choose the best answer for each question.

Languages become endangered and die out for many reasons. Sadly, the physical annihilation of communities of native speakers of a language is all too often the cause of language extinction. In North America, European colonists brought death and destruction to many Native American communities. This was followed by US federal policies restricting the use of indigenous languages, including the removal of native children from their communities to federal boarding schools where native languages and cultural practices were prohibited. As many as 75 percent of the languages spoken in the territories that became the United States have gone extinct, with slightly better language survival rates in Central and South America . . .

Even without physical annihilation and prohibitions against language use, the language of the "dominant" cultures may drive other languages into extinction; young people see education, jobs, culture and technology associated with the dominant language and focus their attention on that language. The largest language "killers" are English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, Hindi, and Chinese, all of which have privileged status as dominant languages threatening minority languages.

When we lose a language, we lose the worldview, culture and knowledge of the people who spoke it, constituting a loss to all humanity. People around the world live in direct contact with their native environment, their habitat. When the language they speak goes extinct, the rest of humanity loses their knowledge of that environment, their wisdom about the relationship between local plants and illness, their philosophical and religious beliefs as well as their native cultural expression (in music, visual art and poetry) that has enriched both the speakers of that language and others who would have encountered that culture. . . .

As educators deeply immersed in the liberal arts, we believe that educating students broadly in all facets of language and culture . . . yields immense rewards. Some individuals educated in the liberal arts tradition will pursue advanced study in linguistics and become actively engaged in language preservation, setting out for the Amazon, for example, with video recording equipment to interview the last surviving elders in a community to record and document a language spoken by no children.

Certainly, though, the vast majority of students will not pursue this kind of activity. For these students, a liberal arts education is absolutely critical from the twin perspectives of language extinction and global citizenship. When students study languages other than their own, they are sensitized to the existence of different cultural perspectives and practices. With such an education, students are more likely to be able to articulate insights into their own cultural biases, be more empathetic to individuals of other cultures, communicate successfully across linguistic and cultural differences, consider and resolve questions in a way that reflects multiple cultural perspectives, and, ultimately extend support to people, programs, practices, and policies that support the preservation of endangered languages.

There is ample evidence that such preservation can work in languages spiraling toward extinction. For example, Navajo, Cree and Inuit communities have established schools in which these languages are the language of instruction and the number of speakers of each has increased.

Question 11 : Which one of the following hypothetical scenarios, if true, would most strongly undermine the central ideas of the passage?

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Explanatory Answer

The author argues that a liberal arts education is absolutely critical from the twin perspectives of language extinction and global citizenship. If a liberal arts education requires that besides English, students only gain fluency in two of the most spoken languages globally, then the author's argument-- that such an education can help preserve languages spiraling toward extinction-- is undermined. So, option 1 is the correct choice.
Consider option 2. Even if schools that teach endangered languages can preserve the language only for a generation, they still manage to keep these languages from going extinct immediately. Even if option 2 were true, the author's position would not be undermined.
Similarly, even if option 3 were true and recording a dying language only manages to freeze it in time, it helps keep the language from going extinct. The author's position would not be undermined.
Option 4 states that most liberal arts students will pursue jobs in publishing and human resource management rather than doctorates in linguistics. This is something the author himself observes: "Some individuals educated in the liberal arts tradition will pursue advanced study in linguistics and become actively engaged in language preservation...Certainly, though, the vast majority of students will not pursue this kind of activity." Option 4 does not undermine the author's argument.

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The question is "Which one of the following hypothetical scenarios, if true, would most strongly undermine the central ideas of the passage? "

Hence, the answer is 'A liberal arts education requires that, in addition to being fluent in English, students gain fluency in two of the top five most spoken languages globally.'

Choice A is the correct answer.

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