The effects of technology on language and the effects of language on culture as a whole are profound and complex. The telegraph, the telephone, and the television have all changed the way people speak to one another. The best current example of such a change is the advent of electronic mail, which has effected a widespread loosening of language usage rules. This loosening has, in turn, made relationships between people more casual than ever before.

Summary
The effects of technology on language and the effects of language on culture are complex. For example, the telegraph, telephone, and television have changed how people speak to each other. Currently, electronic mail has caused a widespread loosening of language usage rules. This loosening has caused relationships between people to be more causal than ever before.

Strongly Supported Conclusions
Changes in the way people communicate with each other can cause the relationships between people to change.

A
Technology can adversely affect the nature of relationships between people.
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know from the stimulus whether technology has any adverse effects. We cannot assume that a change in language use or relationships between people is adverse.
B
Changes in communication media can cause interpersonal relationships to change.
This answer is strongly supported. Electronic mail, through the loosening of language rules, caused interpersonal relationships to change.
C
A decrease in linguistic sophistication can lead to an increase in technological sophistication.
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know from the stimulus whether the loosening of language rules is a direct cause of technological advancement. In fact, this relationship seems opposite from how it’s presented in the stimulus.
D
A widespread loosening of overly rigid language-usage rules can improve communication.
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know from the stimulus whether communication has improved or not. We only know that communication has changed generally.
E
Changes in interpersonal relationships can cause changes in the way people speak to one another.
This answer is unsupported. If anything, the opposite relationship is presented in the stimulus: the way people speak to one another can cause changes in interpersonal relationships.

6 comments

In the spring and fall, eastern pipistrelle bats roost deep inside caves. They feed at night on flying insects and must leave the cave to catch their prey. Flying insects are much more abundant on warm nights than on cool ones. Researchers found that many more bats leave the caves on warm nights than on cool nights, even though the temperature within the caves where the bats roost remains virtually the same from one night to the next.

"Surprising" Phenomenon
Bats leave their caves more often on warm, food-abundant nights than on cool nights, despite seemingly not having any way of knowing it’s a warm night outside the cave.

Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis explaining how bats know it’s warm out despite their caves not changing temperature.

A
The researchers studied only female bats, which tended to catch more insects on warm nights than did the male bats.
We don’t care about how many bugs the bats are catching. We need to know why more bats are leaving their caves on warm nights to begin with.
B
Eastern pipistrelle bats can detect changes in barometric pressure within the caves that correlate closely with changes in temperature outside the caves.
Even though the temperature in the caves doesn’t change, the barometric pressure does. And barometric pressure is closely linked to temperature changes outside the cave. Thus, bats have a way of knowing if it’s a warm night.
C
Eastern pipistrelle bats are incapable of long periods of sustained activity outside the roosting caves on very cool spring and fall evenings.
We already know bats prefer warmer nights. We need something to explain how bats know if a night is warm or not.
D
Because of the long period of winter inactivity, eastern pipistrelle bats tend to consume more insects per day in the spring and fall than in the summer.
This doesn’t explain how bats know if it’s a warm or cool night. We don’t care about how many insects they consume in total.
E
During the periods in which the researchers studied the bats, on most evenings over half of the bats left the caves in search of food.
It doesn’t matter how many total bats are leaving their caves. We need to know why more bats are leaving their caves on warmer nights, despite bats seemingly having no way of knowing the weather while in their caves.

10 comments

Book collector: The demand for out-of-print books is increasing. It has been spurred by the rise of the Internet, the search capabilities of which make it much easier to locate the out-of-print books one seeks.

Summary

The book collector says that there’s an increasing demand for out-of-print books. The Internet contributes to this demand by allowing people to locate the out-of-print books they want.

Strongly Supported Conclusions

Based on these facts, we can infer that being able to locate out-of-print books leads to a greater demand for those books.

A
Book collectors are now using the Internet to find book titles that they previously did not know existed.

This is not supported. The book collector is only talking about people being able to track down the out-of-print books they already want. We don’t know about identifying new books.

B
Fewer people try to find books that are in print than try to find books that are out of print.

This is not supported. The book collector never refers to people trying to find books that are in print, so we can’t compare with people who try to find out-of-print books.

C
The amount of demand for out-of-print books is affected by the ease of finding such books.

This is strongly supported. In order for Internet search capabilities to increase the demand for out-of-print books, it must be the case that being able to more easily find these book increases the demand for them. And increasing demand definitely means affecting demand!

D
The Internet’s search capabilities make it possible to locate most out-of-print books.

This is not supported. All we know is that the Internet makes it easier to locate out-of-print books. We still don’t know how many of those books can actually be found, just that it’s more than would be found without the Internet.

E
Only people who have access to the Internet can locate out-of-print books.

This is not supported. The book collector only says that the Internet makes it easier to locate out-of-print books, but doesn’t indicate that it’s necessarily impossible otherwise.


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