Passage Discussion

[RogerD345]

Hi. I am totally lost in this passage; I just did awful in the whole thing.
Soi would like to see an expert's help. Can one of the test expert possibly provide passage breakdown, please ?

[ohthatpatrick]

Sure, sorry for the delay. We got behind in the final week leading up to the Sept LSAT and now we're digging out.

To clarify from the outset, this is one of people's least favorite RC passages by far. I've had multiple 170-level students who got ruined by this passage.

It's not actually that the passage is necessarily confusing or hard to read. The available answer choices on a lot of these questions are just really, really hard to deal with.

It's an Arts/Humanities passage, which means the purpose will usually be to Highlight the Distinction/Importance of an artist/movement, or to Defend an artist/movement Against Criticism.

This passage does the former: it just writes a book report on Gray's career, so as we look for main point sentences, we are primarily looking for what the author identifies as noteworthy or important about this artist.

P1 - INTRODUCTORY DESCRIPTION OF GRAY / GRAY'S EARLY CAREER
- best known for lacquer
- always focused on details (including hidden ones)
- didn't like fancy / flowy / leafy .... liked simple / clean / austere

P2 - HOW LACQUER MESHED WITH GRAY'S SENSIBILITIES
- you gotta lacquer on all sides (hidden details callback)
- harmonizing aesthetic demands with structural requirements (foreshadows architectural work in last paragraph)
- example: screen

P3 - GRAY'S LATER CAREER AS ARCHITECT
- design of interior and exterior are integrated together
- more hidden layers
- example: hidden stuff and interior/exterior are an integrated whole


As I said before, this synopsis does NOT set us up for easy success on the answers, because many of them are just bad.

The main point correct answer, for example, places lots of weight on the interior/exterior integration but strangely doesn't mention the hidden details at all (which was emphasized at least as much throughout the passage).

It's a stinker!

[RogerD345]

Thank you so much, Patrick, as always. but just out of curiosity and sake of everyone, I remember some, very few, but still exist arts/humanities passages (known as Difficult ones btw), both of the purposes that you mentioned are addressed; to highlight the importance and to defend against criticism. Isn't it, therefore, dangerous to think/ expect that only one of the two purposes shall be presented when dealing with a novel arts/humanities RC passages?