LSAT PrepTest 43 Section 1 Question 8 Explanation | Reading Comprehension

I didn't write the following blog post. It was already on the blog when I took over the URL. The following blog post may contain mistakes. -Steve

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Here's a Reading Comprehension (RC) question from the June 2004 LSAT.

Most of this is going to be in the second paragraph, when the students views on speakers, topic, and place are discussed. This is an evidence question, so we'll be sure to look back at the passage a lot for the answers. But be careful, these questions can be surprisingly tricky. We can't pre-phrase here so let's jump into the choices:

A) The opposite of what we want because the passage says that the students did indeed think the parent and child would be in a particular place, the home. The passage says (lines 36-9) that the students easily supplied a "congruent factor," or a place where the conversation would take place (home) when the conversation was parent/child and about how to be a good kid. If you can cut through the odd language ("congruent factor," etc.), this is straightforward. Be sure you get the hang of the passage's terms.

B) Wrong for the same reason as A (lines 36-40); the students said that in this situation, they'd use only Spanish.

C) This is a little tricky, but it's the opposite of what we want. At the end of the second paragraph, the passage says the students didn't really agree on what language might be used on the beach between priest/parishioner. Since they weren't sure, we might be tempted to mark this as the right answer. But read the question stem carefully...it says what questions the researchers tried to answer. That they got no definite answer is no problem. They asked the students and tried to find out.

D) Correct. In lines 36-40, the students were asked where they might have a parent/child conversation about how to be a good son/daughter. They were also asked what language they'd use. But they were not asked what topic is the most likely to be discussed at home between parent/child at home. Maybe many things are discussed in that context, and some are much more likely to be discussed than how to be a good kid, even though that's discussed in this context too. The researchers never addressed this question; they gave them the topic and didn't ask which was most likely.

E) Wrong for the same reason as C. Students didn't agree on what topic (this is at the end of paragraph 2), but the question was asked by researchers.

Take-home points:

1) On evidence questions, be sure to look back to the passage and get rid of choices that the passage shows are the opposite of what we're looking for (this can be tricky, be careful!).