Meaning in Context: Vocabulary Practice Test

Read the passage and answer the question.

A philosopher writing about moral disagreement distinguishes between descriptive claims and normative claims. Descriptive claims report how the world is: for example, that a policy reduces traffic accidents. Normative claims evaluate how the world ought to be: for example, that a policy is just or unjust. Public debates often become confused when participants treat normative commitments as though they were empirical observations.

The philosopher offers an example from urban planning. Two citizens may agree on the descriptive facts that a proposed highway will reduce commute times for drivers. Yet one citizen opposes it because it will displace residents and increase air pollution in already burdened neighborhoods. The disagreement is not about measurement but about which values should guide decisions. Calling the opponent “anti-data” misses the point.

The philosopher argues that normative claims can be reasoned about without pretending they are purely factual. People can examine whether a value is applied consistently, whether it conflicts with other commitments, and whether it can be defended to those who bear the costs. Such reasoning does not yield a single algorithmic answer, but it is not arbitrary.

The philosopher concludes that a healthier public discourse would acknowledge when disagreements are normative. Doing so would not eliminate conflict, but it would clarify what kind of justification is being demanded: not more statistics, but a defensible account of what should matter.

As used in the passage, normative most nearly means:

Read the passage and answer the question.

A scholar of rhetoric argues that public apologies are often evaluated as if they were private confessions. Audiences ask whether the speaker “really means it,” as though sincerity were the only relevant measure. But in political life, apologies also function as institutional acts: they can acknowledge harm, commit resources, and establish procedures to prevent repetition.

The scholar describes many contemporary apologies as performative in a thin sense. The speaker adopts the posture of contrition—somber tone, carefully chosen phrases—while avoiding any change that would make the apology costly. An executive may say “we regret mistakes” but refuse to disclose internal documents or compensate those harmed. The performance is therefore calibrated to satisfy the demand for remorse without altering the conditions that produced the wrongdoing.

This critique does not imply that all performative speech is empty. The scholar notes that some performative utterances create obligations precisely by being said: a judge’s sentence or a legislature’s vote changes what is permissible. A robust apology, similarly, would not merely express feeling; it would enact a commitment through concrete steps. The problem is not that words can do things, but that the wrong kind of doing is sometimes substituted for the right kind.

The scholar concludes that audiences should attend less to the speaker’s inner state and more to the apology’s consequences. An apology that reorganizes an institution may be meaningful even if the speaker seems awkward. Conversely, an eloquent apology that leaves everything intact may be little more than reputational maintenance.

As used in the passage, performative most nearly means: