MLAT Phonetic Coding & Sound Discrimination 4

Question 1

The MLAT tests phonetic coding partly by presenting words in an artificial script. What is the primary purpose of using an artificial language?

Accepted Answer

To eliminate prior knowledge advantages

Answer

An artificial language ensures that no test-taker has an unfair advantage from previous exposure, isolating the pure ability to learn new sound-symbol correspondences.

Question 2

Which phonetic feature distinguishes the sounds /s/ and /ʃ/ (as in 'sip' vs. 'ship')?

Accepted Answer

Place of articulation

Answer

Both /s/ and /ʃ/ are voiceless fricatives, but /s/ is alveolar (tongue near the alveolar ridge) while /ʃ/ is postalveolar (tongue further back).

Question 3

In a phonetic discrimination task, a test-taker hears pairs of syllables and must judge if they are the same or different. This task measures sensitivity to:

Accepted Answer

Phonemic contrast

Answer

Same-different tasks directly measure whether a learner can detect meaningful sound contrasts (phonemic contrasts) between spoken syllables.

Question 4

The word 'butter' in American English is often pronounced with a flap sound in the middle. This flap is an example of:

Accepted Answer

An allophone of /t/

Answer

The intervocalic flap [ɾ] in American English is an allophone of both /t/ and /d/ — a predictable variant that occurs in a specific phonetic environment.

Question 5

A language learner who can accurately imitate foreign sounds immediately after hearing them but forgets them quickly most likely has a deficit in:

Accepted Answer

Phonetic memory encoding

Answer

Being able to imitate immediately but not retain suggests perception is intact; the weakness is in encoding those sounds into a durable memory trace.

(MLAT) Modern Language Aptitude Test Practice Test

(MLAT) Modern Language Aptitude Test Practice Test

MLAT Phonetic Coding & Sound Discrimination 4