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Course: Praxis Core Reading > Unit 1
Lesson 3: Worked example videos- Main idea | Worked example
- Supporting ideas | Worked example
- Meanings of words | Worked example
- Organization | Worked example
- Inferences | Worked example
- Evaluation of evidence | Worked example
- Purpose of component | Worked example
- Relationship of ideas | Worked example
- Fact or opinion | Worked example
- Author’s attitude | Worked example
- Recognize similar situations | Worked example
- Draw Conclusions | Worked example
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Meanings of words | Worked example
Watch David work through a meaning of words question from the Praxis Core Reading test.
Want to join the conversation?
- how do you know the other passage(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] This is a short passage with a single question,
so I'm going to read the question first. Which of the following
could be substituted for the phrase traffics
in in the first sentence with the least change in meaning? I don't even wanna look at these yet. In fact what I would suggest
to you as we work through this together, if you're gonna
solve this along with me, cover up the choices with your hand. So I've got two approaches for this, but before I get to those two approaches, first let me just read the passage. Art, or at least art that matters, oh oh, traffics in (laughing) a
space between the world as it might be and the world as it is. So this is what we wanna
key in on is traffics in. Whether we feel better
or worse about ourselves in its midst, its here referring to art, whether we feel better
or worse about ourselves in its midst depends on the
kinds of artists involved, but either way, the best
artists make us want to linger in the spaces
they concoct if only because afterward the real world comes more clearly into focus. Okay so we've got this, all
right whatever traffics in means in this context, it's
setting up a distinction between the world as it might
be and the world as it is. And the best artists
make us want to linger in the spaces they concoct,
so the world as it might be, and afterwards the world
as it is, the real world. So if I take what I know
about the word traffic in its normal definition,
the way that the word is normally used, it's
like cars or people moving. Right, that's traffic. So I'm going to say that this
has a connotation of motion. Art is moving back and
forth between the world as it might be and the world as it is. So my first strategy here is
to come up with a definition in my own words, my best guess. So moving back and forth or just moves for my first technique is
I wanna test my definition against these other options. Right because we're looking for something that can be substituted
without changing the sentence or changing the sentence the least. So does clogs up mean
the same thing as moving? No. Does exists in mean the
same thing as moving? Not exactly. I don't wanna cross this off right now. I might, I'll come back to this later. Because this doesn't exactly
match our definition, but we're also not looking to
match the exact definition. We're looking to change
the sentence the least. So I'm gonna leave choice B alone for now. So C, passes by, which
is similar to overtakes. These are both kind of playing on the idea of the more common definition of traffic, not traffics in, but traffic,
right like a snarl of traffic on a freeway, bunch of
cars and buses all honking, like a big mass of
vehicles that isn't moving, that kind of definition of traffic. These both kind of match my
in my own words definition. They all sound like moving. So I'm gonna flag these two for later and then try the second technique. Consumes I can knock out right away because consumes sounds
nothing like motion. So okay so now we have three options left, and now I wanna do my second technique, which is to plug these choices
back into the sentence, replace traffics in and
read that first sentence and see if it makes sense in context and see crucially if it
doesn't change the meaning of the sentence very much. Art, or at least art that
matters, exists in a space between the world as it might
be and the world as it is. That sounds pretty good. Art, or at least art that matters, passes by a space between
the world as it might be and the world as it is. Well, now that's strange
because now we're talking about transcending or moving past a space instead of operating within a space. It's the word in is
actually doing a great deal of heavy lifting, and
that's where we're getting that back and forth part with traffics. It's not like the author is
saying that important art eliminates the space between
the world as it might be and the world as it is. But rather that it moves
between it or connects us to the world as it might be. So I don't think that either
of our literal readings of traffic make a ton of sense here. Overtakes, I don't think makes sense. Art, or at least art that
matters, overtakes a space between the world as it might
be and the world as it is. And that means that B is our answer. Because C and D, while
they mean similar things, and while they even sound a
little bit like the definition of traffics in that I came up with, to substitute in these two phrases would completely change the
meaning of the sentence. We can see that the way
the author was using the phrase traffics in
really means something more like operates in, which
is frankly just another fancier way of saying exists in or is. So we've got our two-part strategy. The first step is to
come up with a definition for the phrase or the word
you're trying to understand in your own words. So come up with your
own personal definition for how that makes sense in
the context of the sentence, what it means to you. And then test against that,
eliminate what you can. Whatever you can't eliminate that way, plug that into the
context that it came from. For this question in
particular, we're looking for something that changes it the least because the context is
what's most important here. Some choices may make sense on their own without the context of the sentence. They might even seem like obvious answers, but once you plug them
back into the passage, they don't make the same
kind of sense anymore.