LSAT PrepTest 43 Section 1 Question 11 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 test.

This is an evidence question, basically, so we'll be sure to look back at the passage a lot and we won't use the summaries too much, since they're a little too general for this type of question.. Let's just jump into the choices, since a pre-phrase wouldn't really work here either:

A) Out of scope. The passage doesn't say anything about all instances of code-switching being explainable by the speakers in the example with the students. It just gives an example of how sometimes the speakers can explain it. There is the possibility that some code-switching is unwitting. So, there's no conflict between that and the study with the students, since that study doesn't address the possibility of unwitting code-switching.

B) The opposite of what we want since the passage directly contradicts this choice in lines 11-19, saying that situational factors influence code-switching and talking about congruence. The students show that situational factors explain a lot of code-switching and that congruence is a factor (when the situations didn't match the topic, like the priest on the beach, for example...this is about congruence).

C) The opposite of what we want because the passage (in the 2nd paragraph's first sentence) contradicts this choice. It says that situational factors explain "most" language switches, implying that the rhetorical factors mentioned with the Puerto Rican family are a minority of cases, but it says nothing like prior research explaining all but the "most unusual" cases. This choice is extreme.

D) Out of scope since the passage never really addresses this. It gives the example of the students, who knew about the factors influencing their language choice, but the author/passage never say for sure how much code-switching is witting or unwitting.

E) Correct. Lines 53-5 say that they only use Spanish occasionally for rhetorical effect. Since the author's saying this in his passage, he is likely to agree with this proposition, and so it's right.

Take-home points:

1) Look back at the passage on evidence questions.

2) Ditch choices that are out of scope (here, a choice the author never addresses can't be right, since we have no clue whether he'd agree with it or not) and choices that are the opposite of what we want (in this case, contradicted by the passage...if the author contradicts it, we can be pretty sure he won't agree with the choice).