LSAT PrepTest 20 Section 2 Question 1 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 question from the October 1996 LSAT.

Summaries are helpful for main point questions, so let's recall them:

Paragraph 1 = Davis under-recognized because he changed styles

P. 2 = Davis went from bebop to jazz

P. 3 = He did less restrictive jazz

P. 4 = Modifications to jazz playing caused anger

P. 5 = Davis opened up new possibilities

Given these summaries, we can pre-phrase a main point, something like "Davis expanded jazz but is under-appreciated because this angered jazz purists." B fits well, we notice, since it says that Davis was not respected as much because he was an innovator, just as the summaries and pre-phrase do. Let's look through the other choices quickly:

A) Clearly the opposite of what we want since it makes a negative statement about Davis' career while the author is quite positive, calling it "astonishingly productive" at the passage's very beginning.

B) Correct.

C) Out of scope; time and time again, the author emphasizes that it was Davis' experimentation with jazz that made critics dislike him, not his long career. The author does mention how long it was, but doesn't identify that as a reason for critics disapproving of him.

D) Too narrow in scope since it never mentions the reactions of critics, which the author takes a long time discussing and which is a major point of the passage. What this choice said is true according to the passage, but it's just one part of the passage, not its main point.

E) The opposite of what we want since it says critics liked him even though the passage focuses on critics dislike of him. Maybe some critics really liked him, but the passage doesn't talk about them much, and critical acclaim is hardly the passage's main point.

Remember:

1) Use summaries (very briefly written out) and a pre-phrase (usually not written out at all, just in your head unless it's complex) to identify answers more accurately and quickly.

2) Eliminate choices that say the opposite of what the author did (if the author wasn't saying that, it isn't the main point) and choices that are out of or too narrow in scope (if the passage doesn't talk about it at all or if it's only a small part of the passage, it's not the main point) on main point questions.