700-800 level CR question

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700-800 level CR question

by dhonu121 » Sun May 20, 2012 11:06 am
Columnist: The winner of this year's national spelling bee won by correctly spelling the spoken word Ursprache, which means "fame" in German. Given the richness of our language, why must we resort to words taken from modern foreign languages to challenge our best spellers? Ursprache is listed in our dictionary, as are words from many other foreign languages, but future spelling bees should limit themselves to words in our dictionary that have been anglicized in all aspects because spelling English words, not knowledge of linguistics and international phonetics, is the point of these contests.

Which of the following can most reasonably be inferred from the argument above?

a. The spelling contest winner knew how to spell most of the anglicized words in the dictionary.
b. Foreign words are more difficult than anglicized words for all contestants to spell.
c. Spelling contestant winners should be determined by their facility with all aspects of language.
d. To spell foreign words, contestants must recognize the language and know its pronunciation.
e. The English language contains more borrowed words than most other languages.

I am not able to understand the passage here.
Author on one hand says that future spelling bees should include words that have been anglicised in all aspects while on the other hand he also says that not knowledge of linguistics and international phonetics, is the point of these contests.

If latter is his point, then why at all he says the former point.
Basically, I am finding both of these arguments of his at 180 degrees and utterly conflicting, and hence I am not able to attach the options confidently.
Somebody please clear my doubt.
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Source: — Critical Reasoning |

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by GmatKiss » Sun May 20, 2012 11:27 am
This is just a bad question for me!

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by ice_rush » Sun May 20, 2012 3:14 pm
think (D) should be the answer here...the columnist is arguing that spelling bees should limit themselves to only spelling the words. They should NOT be concerned with the knowledge of linguistics and international phonetics - this means, to spell foreign words correctly, one must have an understanding of that language.



hope this helps!

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by ronnie1985 » Mon May 21, 2012 6:07 am
I agree with ice_rush. In saying that spell bees should not be concerned about linguistics and phonetics, the author means that spell bees must limit themselves to spelling correctly only.
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by jimmyjimmy » Mon May 21, 2012 1:11 pm
i think C coz the answer for inference question should be from the passage which is restated in other way and c restates the same from the passage

wat is OA???????????????????

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by Gaurav 2013-fall » Fri May 25, 2012 2:41 am
IMO D.

PS: I looked up dictionary for the meaning of 'anglicized'

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by jimmyjimmy » Sat May 26, 2012 10:55 am
dhonu is not gonna reveal OA??

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by vk_vinayak » Mon May 28, 2012 3:01 am
One more vote for D.
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