Missouri Educator Gateway Assessments (MEGA) Counselor Practice Exam

Mastery of connectives like "however" and "although" is a significant language development trait of late adolescence because, during this stage, individuals are refining their cognitive and linguistic abilities, enabling them to construct more complex sentences and express nuanced thoughts. The use of connectives allows adolescents to develop advanced reasoning and argumentative skills, which are crucial for academic success and effective communication. This skill reflects their ability to convey relationships between ideas, improve coherence in writing, and engage in critical thinking.

In contrast, limited vocabulary would not be typical of late adolescence, as this stage is characterized by an expanding vocabulary that comes from a range of experiences and education. A focus only on spoken language skills is also not accurate since adolescents engage in both spoken and written communication, developing proficiency in both areas. Lastly, while understanding metaphors can vary among individuals, late adolescents generally demonstrate increased capacity to understand and use figurative language, making difficulty in this area less applicable as a hallmark of language development during this stage.