Passage Discussion

[Laura Damone]

The passage discussion is attached below. Hope it helps!

[LSAT-Chang]

I was so confused by lines 44-48. It first says that the "wearing down of tooth crown surfaces reduces caries formation" and then the next sentence says "...may diminish tooth wear, thus increasing caries frequency" -- what am I overlooking? The first sentence says that diminishing toothwear reduces caries and then it suddenly says the opposite......... that diminishing toothwear increases caries..

[noah]

You must have struggled with question #17, which hinges on recognizing that fiber and grit can reduce caries formation by smoothing out the teeth's surfaces, and then, if the wearing down becomes too much, the teeth become more susceptible to caries.

The key is the "however," which is used to contrast the two phenomena.

Make sense?

[jm.kahn]

Ok, so I've done this passage before, but I was trying to pick PT-62 Passage-3B apart piece-by-piece to review its structure. And it's construction looks a bit confusing. It's the comparative passage B about dental caries.

At the end of the first para, it says "Evidence indicates that...dependent on agriculture." This seems to suggest that the passage would elaborate on this statement or reference it later.

The second para describes background information/research about how agriculture results in declining human/dental health with a little twist (about fiber or grit and its double-edged effect on caries).

However in the 3rd para, which sets up the introduction to the paradoxical observation about caries, the author refers to "from the beginning of the period represented by the recovered remains" in line 52-54. This would mean that the "evidence" in line 36-38 refers to not something related to Ban Chiang because all of Ban Chiang evidence described in para-4 is related to agriculture period and doesn't conform to the "evidence" of line 36-38.

So, the line 35-38 seem to contain an orphaned or underdeveloped idea, which is odd particularly as it's mentioned in relation with Ban Chiang discovery. It's as if the author is mentioning some "other" evidence out there in line 35-38 but since it's simply inserted there when talking about the site's skeletal remains without the reference to "other", it confuses.

Any explanation or support for the passage structure? Thanks.