Q10

[kimnamil14]

I stared at the answer choices and the passage and racked my brain for good 20 minutes until I decided to throw a towel and call for help. Can someone please take a pity on me and help me how to go about this problem?

Thanks a lot!! You guys have been such a great help!

[noah]

Towel-throwing is an LSAT ritual!

For comparative passages, there's a lot of questions like this where you have to find the overlap (and choose it or choose the one that does not have an overlap). For #10, here's what I think about each answer choice:

(A) Passage A does not present and reject a theory - it critiques an approach.
(B) Passage A does indeed make evaluative claims, but doesn't B also?
(C) is correct because Passage A does provide specific examples - "Oral History and the Narrative of Class Identity," while B does not provide any specific examples. This is tricky, because Passage A's main point is not about the poor attempts made at incorporating narrative, so while we do get examples, they're not examples of the main issue being criticized. However, the answer simply says "examples of a phenomenon it criticizes."
(D) Both passages criticize. So negative.
(E) We can argue that Passage B outlines a theory - that lawyers write that way because they see others lawyers write that way - but if we can argue that, then we can argue that Passage A also outlines a theory - of why historians do what they do to students.

Does that clear it up? And I'm glad we've been a help to you - give us a shout out somewhere so we can pull more unwitting students into our web of evil.

[sheffieldjordan]

It seems I don't understand what the question is asking. Could you please help me understand it?

Should I be looking for an answer choice that illustrates a way in which the passages are NOT parallel? so, the answer choice would describe something that does NOT occur in the passage?
because it seems like your explanations indicate that the incorrect answers are the ones that do NOT occur in the passage, and the correct answer DOES occur in the passage.

I just can't wrap my mind around what this question wants me to do -- so I can't understand why (C) is correct!

Any help you could offer would be very appreciated.

[noah]

It's tricky. You need to choose an answer that correctly names how the two passages are different. If an answer incorrectly describes what a passage is doing, it's not a true comparison.

For example, if we were comparing sharks and doves, it would not be correct to say: The first is an animal that walks on four legs, while the latter flies.

Got it?

[sheffieldjordan]

Thanks for the help. I understand it now. And it was so simple!

It seems this test makes me think in new ways every day.

[kmolloy.ucla]

I think that A's specific examples of the phenomenon it criticizes are in lines 5-14 ("historians require undergraduates to read scholarly monographs that sap the vitality of history" and "they assign books with formulaic arguments that transform history into an abstract debate... such books cannot stimulate students who yearn to connect to history emotionally as well as intellectually").

[ericha3535]

Wait a sec...
I still don't get how the question stem is asking for correct comparison...
doesn't it ask you to find something that isn't parallel meaning
wrong comparison?

[sumukh09]

Wait a sec...
I still don't get how the question stem is asking for correct comparison...
doesn't it ask you to find something that isn't parallel meaning
wrong comparison?

We have to find an answer choice that CORRECTLY identifies an element of one passage but not the other. So answer choice "C" says passage A does this but passage B doesn't which is why it's correct. Passage A DOES do that thing but passage B doesn't hence with respect to this element the two passages are not parallel.

[1191893369]

I think that A's specific examples of the phenomenon it criticizes are in lines 5-14 ("historians require undergraduates to read scholarly monographs that sap the vitality of history" and "they assign books with formulaic arguments that transform history into an abstract debate... such books cannot stimulate students who yearn to connect to history emotionally as well as intellectually").

I do agree with u.

And thank you all help me figure out this tricky one!

[ttunden]

I picked C originally but picked A during blind review following the PT.

I liked A because Passage A does reject the argument for an opposing position. the author rejects the narrative approach because it has been implemented to no success.

Passage B does not reject the narrative approach since the last paragraph of B, the author states narrative could perhaps serve as an important corrective.

A is against the narrative approach, you can see where he states it is a fad. the result of the AHA meeting. and then lines 25-30.


your thoughts? comments?

feel free to message as me as well as i am limited to only 2 posts per day per Manhattan rules.

[tommywallach]

Hey Ttunden,

I know of no rules limiting the number of posts you can make per day (there shouldn't be any). To the contrary, we love to have posts from people. However, our instructors don't directly respond to posts from "orange" posters (folks who haven't paid for a book or a class) unless there is a lot of discussion from multiple people. To that end, it's better to address your questions to the forum-goers in general in the future.

Good luck studying!

-t

[maryadkins]

Hi ttunden,

Reaffirming what Tommy said but nonetheless wanted to chime in because we appreciate all your posts.

I think you need to carefully re-read Passage A. The author is not against a narrative approach. The author is critical of how historians have attempted to integrate the narrative approach, but the narrative approach overall is something the author endorses. The first paragraph lays out the problems with how history is taught; the second paragraph says that stories have become a means to address this, but it hasn't been done well. Lines 27-28 really drive home this point that if the stories were being told well the author would be more in support of it.

I would say (A) is primarily wrong because this isn't a distinction between Passages A and B. Both are critical of a mode of writing. If (A) described Passage A correctly, then Passage (B) would also meet this definition.

[kylejenna6]

can someone define what "evaluative claim" would even mean from b?

[jewels0602]

The toughest part of this question for me was the wording of the question itself with the NOT capitalized. I could not wrap my head around what they were asking for-- but thank goodness for this thread in clearing that up.. whew!

[laura.bach]

Hey all,

Two questions:

1. I picked (E) on both my original test and on blind review. I thought the theory B outlined was found in lines 42-44 and 57 - 59:

"Perhaps the currently fashionable call for attention to narrative in legal education could have an effect on this."

and

"Still, even mere awareness of the value of narrative could perhaps serve as an important corrective."

Maybe it's more of a hope/hypothesis than a theory? But that seems like kind of a tedious distinction to me (even for the LSAT...). Could someone please help me understand where (E) goes wrong.

2. I just want to make sure I understand how (C) is correct. When I first read it, I misread "a phenomenon it criticizes" for "the phenomenon it criticizes". The specific examples aren't limited to the main phenomenon (poor writing), but rather a sub-phenomenon (narratives becoming a "fad" within the profession), whereas Passage B doesn't provide any concrete examples of anything. Is that what makes this choice correct?

Thank you for your help!

[logicfiend]

For (E), like Noah says, you can come up with examples for why both passages outline theories. The lines you cited is actually what I was thinking when I saw this question. But you can also look at A and say the author is citing a theory for why historians continue teaching history in unemotional approaches - because they are following in their predecessor's foot steps. Their professors used the same approach with them and they're using the same approach with their students. That sounds like a theory, right?

For that reason, (E) can't be right because it says A doesn't outline a theory. And we need an answer choice that correctly describes the relationship between the passages.

(C) is right regardless of which phenomenon you think it's describing. Passage A describes and criticizes examples of the phenomenon of the unemotional historiographical approach and it also presents examples to the history profession attempting to include storytelling in its work.

Passage B doesn't give any examples of "writing badly" or how storytelling can or has been integrated into the legal curriculum, so (C) correctly describes how these passages differ.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great explanation!

To circle back to a few posts
"evaluative" in (B), means "opinionated ... saying whether you like/dislike something"

They definitely both expressed opinions.

I love the explanation given for (E), but will add that I see the verb "outlines" as similar to something like "enumerates" / "itemizes" / "delineates" ... they often use verbs like that to break an answer choice ... an author can "mention/propose/advocate" something without necessarily having outlined/enumerated/delineated the idea. Those latter verbs convey a detailed un-packing of the proposal.

[jeanne'sjean]

(E) We can argue that Passage B outlines a theory - that lawyers write that way because they see others lawyers write that way - but if we can argue that, then we can argue that Passage A also outlines a theory - of why historians do what they do to students.

From your use of "thoery", I think it means "an idea used to account for a situation or justify a course of action".

I re-read the Passage A again and again and found the most closest match is "...they visit on students what was visited on them in graduate school". So "they" refers to "historians" rather than "scholarly monographs" right? So it makes sense that the theory in Passage A, if any, may refer to the reason why historians teach the students in this boring way--because it was what their teachers taught them.

Sorry I'm not a native speaker so the phrase "visit on" confuses me a lot.