lsat prep test 6a

KAPLAN LSAT PREP

LSAT

RELEASED TEST VIEXPLAINED

A Guide to the October, 1992 LSAT

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K A P L A N 1

SECTION I:

READING COMPREHENSION

LSAT PREP ________________________________________________________________ LSAT Test VI Explained: Section I

2 K A P L A N

Passage 1Taft-Hartley Act(Q. 1-6)

Topic and Scope: Right-to-work legislation; specifically, the impact of such laws on thewages of minority workers.

Purpose and Main Idea: The authors purpose is to examine a variety of studies, many ofthem in disagreement, about how (and indeed whether) right-to-work laws have impactedwages. This is done more in the manner of a survey than an argument; hence, the mainidea is little more than the general statement in lines 30-32 that studies like Carrolls (andthe pioneering one of Ashenfelter) have important implications, most notably thatBlack workers wages may be depressed by right-to-work laws.

Paragraph Structure: 1 begins by describing what right-to-work is: a reaction to union-shop agreements that force everyone to become a member. In a state with right-to-worklaws, a worker need not join a union. Lines 9 and on switch to the impact of such laws, andthe view that that impact is negligible has not gone uncriticized, notably by Carroll. Heasserts (lines 20-25) that right-to-work hurts workers not directly but indirectly, byweakening union bargaining power and hence (lines 28-29) lowering wages.

2 shifts the focus to demographics, specifically to minority workers, whom the authorbelieves (lines 32-36) may be hurt more in right-to-work states than in states having a unionshop, since unions tend to have a positive impact on minority wages. Lines 41-66 are wherethe passage gets most torturous, and where you the reader have to be careful to get the gistof whats going on and not get discouraged if the specifics seem to elude you. A goodstrategy may be to start with the pioneering Ashenfelteri.e. someone the author likes;get a sense of his view, and then figure out what Ashenfelter is reacting against. Here thescope narrows even further, to compare two types of unions. Craft unions, Ashenfelterfinds (lines 49-53), have tended to exclude Blacks, and thus White craftspeople tend tomake more than Black craftspeople; but things are very different in industrial unions, where(lines 55-58) Blacks and Whites wages tend to be much closer.

All of this should make clearer whats going on in lines 41-47. Instead of comparing unionvs. nonunion wages, Ashenfelter (and our author) imply, we are wiser to compare theimpact of right-to-work on different types of unions. If we do so, the passage implies, we willsee that the authors indirect and tentative confirmation to the scenario posed in lines 32-36is Yes, Black unionized workers are likely to do better, and Black workers in right-to-workstates are generally going to be hurt economicallyunless, as we see at the very end, theeconomy in general improves, thus creating a general demand for labor.


K A P L A N 3

The Big Picture:

Section Management strategies should always be in the forefront of your mind. Howdid many test-takers decide that this was a good passage to hold for later? Its long.Its boring (no offense to labor law buffs). It begins in a heavily factual way; theauthors views dont appear early. Most of the passage is devoted to a factualrecounting of the views of others; the author is only occasionally present (e.g. lines11-12, and 20-32), and the authors main idea is ambiguous, at best (notice that thequestions dont include a typical main idea / primary purpose question.) Finally,new concepts are introduced right up until the final sentence; economic growth,labor shortagesit just never seems to end. . .

For these reasons, the reading challenge in this one is tougher for examinees than,say, Passages 2 and 3 in this section. Most people are better off saving a toughpassage like #1 until later in the Reading Comp. section when, having gotten pointsunder your belt and (one hopes) set aside time to spend, you can dig into a toughpassage in a relaxed and thoughtful way.

You must begin every passage, especially a thorny one like this, with a solidfoundation, which means the opening 1/3 of text. Take your time! Read and thinkabout and paraphrase the opening sentences carefully. (In this passage, for instance,it was critical that you understood what right-to-work is, and what the pro and conissues are, before proceeding further.) If you go for a mere skim, youre likely toneed one or more time-consuming re-readings later on, in order to get a handle onwhats what. Spending time thinking about the opening 1/3, in fact, saves time.

Dont lose sight of the passages scope as it movesor in this case, crawlsalong.Especially note places in which the author explicitly narrows the scope, such as here,when he moves from right-to-works impact on workers in general in 1 to its impacton minority workers in 2.

The Questions:

1. (E)As if it werent bad enough that the section begins with a tough passage, the passage beginswith one of the toughest question types, akin to Parallel Reasoning in the LR sections. Ontop of that, to get the answer, you have to reread a lot of context: Though the questionstems literature is mentioned at line 9, its not described until lines 13-17, by the critic ofthat literature, Mr. Carroll. He says that the researchers believe the right-to-work laws haveminimal impact because they have simply looked at whether the laws have decreasedunion membership and said, Hey, they havent, so theres no impact. In the same way,(E)s transit system asserts that a fare hike has had no negative effects simply becauseridership hasnt decreased. In both cases, a look at sheer numbers prompts a hastyconclusion that may not be supported by other relevant data.

(A)s conclusion weighs benefits and disadvantages and states one sides argument for whya law should be passed. Thats a recommendation, not at all similar to the value judgmentregarding the impact of right-to-work laws found in lines 9-17.


4 K A P L A N

(B) includes evidence that amounts to a value judgment (The well-off can afford the tax)but, similar to (A), concludes with a strongly implied recommendation suggested by theproponents: The tax should be passed. It doesnt conclude that X has had no impactwhich is what we need.

(C) The students pre- and post-curriculum change might seem to parallel the workers pre-and post- right-to-work laws. But nothing in lines 9-17 has a parallel to (C)s charge ofunfair treatment. (C) would work better if it went like so: Since there are as many studentssince the curriculum change as there were before, the change has had no effect on thestudent body.

(D), far from concluding that a phenomenon (the new policy) has had no effect, concludesthat its effect has been major.

Never succumb to the assumption that you need to, or should, attack LSATquestions in the order in which theyre printed. Feel free to skip tough ones insearch of the quick and easy points that you know are there. Somewhere.

2. (C)This point of view has not gone uncriticized. Thomas M. Carroll... These sentences linkCarroll to the controversial point of view in lines 9-11. Carroll takes exception, as (C) says,to the idea that right-to-work laws havent had an impact on wages. The rest of the goeson to elaborate how Carroll believes that the laws weaken unions and encouragemanufacturer/supplier collusion.

(A) Au contraire, this is the viewpoint Carroll rebuts.

(B) Carrolls study does see right-to-work laws as an impediment to unions, but wereexplicitly told (lines 21-23) that such laws do not reduce union membership.

(D) Carrolls study does not support, but rather criticizes, earlier research.

(E) Carroll acknowledges that theres an opportunity for collusion, but thats all; we neverhear about the mechanics of doing so.

Never answer a question based on your memory of the text. Go back to re-read thekey passage(s) first. Taking those extra seconds will pay off in more right answersand a net gain of time.

3. (A)Craft unions are mentioned once and once only: as part of the important fact, cited byAshenfelter, that minorities have been traditionally excluded from membership in suchunions and that therefore craft unionism increases the gap between Black and White wages.(A) paraphrases this idea that, through craft unions, more money is earned by members(largely White) than non-members (most Blacks).


K A P L A N 5

(B) Nothing is said about increased membership in craft unions. If anything, the exclusionof a large number of workers would tend to depress the total.

(C) is a distortion of the comparison between craft and industrial unions. Yes, the latterhave more minority members and tend to reduce the Black/White wage differential, butwe never learn anything about the rate at which wages rise in different unions.

(D) We are told that right-to-work laws have a negative effect on wages of industrialworkers, but we can infer that they would also affect the wages of craft union members who,as Ashenfelter reports, are mostly white.

(E) misinterprets the point made at the end of 2 (which is rather far removed from thecraft union reference). We know that a healthy economy can create a demand for workersand raise their wages. But theres no way to tell from the info given which groupcraft orindustrialwould be more likely to experience wage increases under these circumstances.For all we know, the increase in wages brought on by labor shortages applies only to theindustrial sector.

When the basis of a question is highly localized (as it is here, to lines 49-54),recognize that the further you move away from that detail, the more likely you are tomove away from the correct answer. (Example: (E) here, almost 15 lines removed fromthe craft union reference.)

4. (E)This one follows up on Q. 3, because right after the author polishes off craft unions (line54), he cites the more favorable situation in industrial unions, where Black workers havemade wage gains. Correct choice (E) is, in fact, lines 55-58 almost verbatim. ItsAshenfelters estimate, yes, but cited approvingly as if as fact by our author.

(A), (B), (C) All of the Prior to 1947s relate to the situation prior to the Taft-Hartley Act.But that appears in 1, long before industrial unions take center stage in this passage!Industrial unions are never explicitly related to the pre-right-to-work era, so none of thesestatements is remotely inferable.

(D) Au contraire! (D) directly contradicts lines 55-58 as well as correct choice (E).

Sometimes, more than one answer choice is wrong for the same reason.

5. (B)The question assumes a Yes answer as to whether right-to-work weakens unions, andgoes on to speculate about a counteracting force. The only place that that comes up is inthe last sentence, where we learn that a possible exception would be a right-to-work statewhere the economy is booming. In such a case a demand for labor might drive wages up.

(A) makes no sense. Decreasing the number of union shop agreements would most likelydecrease the economic power of unions even more.


6 K A P L A N

(C), (E) Craft unions come up in the discussion of race-related wage differentials, but wecannot infer that either a decrease in craft union membership (C) or their decline in thelabor market (E) would counteract the decrease of unions overall economic power in right-to-work states.

(D) The idea of merging unions, whether weak or strong ones, is never mentioned, so wehave no idea whether a merger would make any difference.

Think about where a questions source in the passage is likely to be. Re-read thatsource, and pre-phrase an answer, before proceeding to the choices.

6. (D)This one should be manageable if you recognize the structure as we described it above.Carroll and Ashenfelter, each in his own sphere, take on misguided thinking about right-to-work laws, and the author merely gives them a forum to do so. So (D)s review ofresearch that challenges earlier research is the closest to the mark.

(A) loses sight of the key question at the heart of the passage: Have right-to-work laws hurtworkers? (A) ignores that question, and makes it sound as if the only issue is how toconduct research.

(B) There are two pairs of competing ideas that take center stage here: the view that right-to-work has had no impact, vs. Carroll; and the tactic of comparing union workers to non-union ones, vs. Ashenfelter. And to reconcile means to bring together, whereas ourauthor seems to, overall, favor the two researchers mentioned.

(C) The passage could be said to critique right-to-work laws in the sense that such lawsdepress wages, and disproportionately so for minorities. So (C) could be considered half-right, but its latter half is dead wrong. The author shows no interest in exploring orinfluencing future change.

(E) No one specific case is cited. Yes, Ashenfelter is credited with a specific comparisonbetween craft and industrial unions, but thats buried in lines 47-58 and doesnt deserveglobal prominence. Furthermore, far from confirming earlier studies, Carroll rebuts theinterpretation of the previous literature of right-to-work laws, as its so called.

When answer choices (like these) are highly abstract, be sure to pre-phrase ananswer first, and then go on to treat the language in the choices concretelyotherwise theyll all sound good.


K A P L A N 7

Passage 2Women Physicians In China(Q. 7-12)

Topic and Scope: Women doctors in China; specifically, the need for women missionarydoctors in the late 1800s.

Purpose and Main Idea: The authors purpose is to explain how it was that the influx ofWestern women doctors created opportunities for both Western and Chinese women; andthe Main Idea is pretty much the passages first sentence. The structure and gist of thepassage are made very clear from the very beginninggood news for test-takers.

Paragraph Structure: 1 focuses on the missionary movement, and the changes that led tosending women doctors to China. The most notable change was the growth, from 1870 on,of womens mission societies, which were much more eager to send single women overseasthan were the traditional male-dominated mission boards; but the latter fell into line (lines25-30) over time.

2 describes the conditions that Western women doctors found in Chinaconditions thatyou might have mentally summed up as initial unease, then widespread acceptance.Then, as promised in lines 3-4, 3 explains the impact of these developments on Chinesewomen, who first made use of the women doctors services and then began to be medicallytrained themselves, thus becoming able to crack the medical glass ceiling of its day andearn an independent living. 4 sums up, in rather general terms, the progress for womengenerally that was signaled by all of the above-described developments.

The Big Picture:

Start reading and thinking at line one! A passage like this one dramaticallyillustrates how much of the game plan an author can give away as early as the veryfirst sentence. Dont wait for 12 lines to go by before you start thinking andparaphrasing. Get busy early!

In Reading Comp., promises made are promises kept. The first sentence promises atreatment of how opportunities arose for Western as well as Chinese women; weshould expect each of those to be treated in turn. (And they are, in separate s.)When an author makes promises, see to it that s/he keeps them.

The concept of gist comes into play in 1. You dont have to understand all of thedetails, chapter and verse, of how women doctors came to China. Get a rough senseof itit was women who sent the women overseasand wait for the questions todemand that you read and understand more deeply than that.


8 K A P L A N

The Questions:

7. (E)This one is hard to pre-phrase, because the author says so very many things about Westernwomen working abroad. But since the question speaks about missionaries only and leavesdoctors out, you might have guessed that the answer must come out of 1, the that hasthe most to do with the missionary movement. Note, too, that all five choices say beforethe 1870s, which is 1s time frame. For these reasons, you might have gone back toconsult 1 in more depth before attacking the choices. As it happens, lines 15-16 spell out(E)s inference that the typical pre-1870 women missionary went overseas with herhusband.

(A) There were few single women missionaries pre-1870, but we know nothing about theoverall total.

(B) Au contraire, the author states that the womens societies didnt start financingmissionaries until 1870.

(C), (D) Both topicswomen nurses (C) and the pre-1870 location of women missionarywork (D)go unmentioned in the text.

Attack each question stem carefully for clues. Note, for instance, that here in Q. 7 theabsence of a reference to doctors helps us determine which part of the passage toconsult for the answer.

8. (D)Exclusively male. That hearkens back to 1. Scan for the phrase: its present at line 22.Study the context: The uniformly male members were uniformly uneasy about sendingsingle women overseas. That account[s] for [their] attitude, as (D) has it, and ties into thepurpose of the detail overall, to show how things changed when womens societies beganmaking the decisions.

(A), (B), (C), and (E) all fall short because they make no mention whatsoever of the genderissue which is, after all, what the question is based upon. (A) trumps up a religious vs.secular distinction, (E) a distinction between work abroad and at home; (B) evokes Chinesewomen, who dont show up until 3; and (C) brings in professional qualifications, whichare never mentioned.

Quite often a Reading Comp. question stem will mention a potent word or phrasefrom the passage without putting it in quotes. (Often its a proper name; sometimesits a phrase like exclusively male here; see also Q. 11, below.) Follow up all clues!Use the potent word or phrase to help you locate where the answer is to be found.


K A P L A N 9

9. (A)Choices written this abstractly can be maddening. They all sound good at first reading,dont they? Avoid a quagmire by pre-phrasing the organization on your own; it might golike so: 1 explains how single women doctors began to go over to China; and s 2 and 3show the impact of their presence within China. The passages wonderful first sentence isthe situation that correct choice (A) describes, and the rest of (A) is what we justdiscussed: the causes for that situation, and the results.

(B) The author never refutes the assertion she makes in the first sentence. (B) makes itsound as if the passage is a give-and-take debate between two sides, rather than an alreadyfully-reasoned argument.

(C) Even if there were an obstacle kicking off the passagewhich there isnt(C)s use offuture tense (possible ways to overcome) is a deal-breaker. This is an historical overview.

(D) Predicament is no more appropriate here than (C)s obstacle. And this overview ofdevelopments in the latter half of the 19th century hardly ends with a recommendation.

(E) No drawbacks of having women doctors in China are mentioned. And what eventualoutcome could be predicted? All those people are dead now.

By pre-phrasing an answerhowever awkwardly or tentativelyto a question inwhich the choices are all abstract, you are less likely to be taken in by off-the-wallchoices, and more likely to locate the right answer quickly.

10. (A)According to the author, the reason the 1870s began the increase in overseas single womenmissionaries was the rise of womens groups as sponsors, in contrast to the all-male boardsthat were doing the sending previously. The right answer should cut the cord between thewomens groups and the missionaries, and thats what (A) does. That the majority ofoverseas single women missionaries got no sponsorship from womens groups strikes atthe heart of the thesis in 1, and makes it necessary to search for another explanation for thesame phenomenon.

(B) speaks, perhaps, to the personal motivation of women wanting to serve overseas, butthat doesnt affect the authors analysis of why in the 1870s more single women began to doso.

(C) So women doctors were outnumbered by women teachers and translators. So what?Why else, except for the reason given by the author, did their number increase after 1870?(C) has no reply.

(D) and (E) dont, either, concentrating as they do on the nature of the women missionarieswho went abroad. Nothing in these choices undermines the authors contention thatfinancial support from the newly-created womens societies was responsible for theincrease noted in the stem.


10 K A P L A N

Undermining an argument in Reading Comp. requires the same work as in LogicalReasoning: locating the evidence and conclusion, examining the link between them,and severing that link in some way. Its a little harder here, since you have to dig theargument in question out of 60 or so lines of text. But the process is the same.

11. (D)The stems reference to Western women . . . physicians . . . in Canton clearly sends us to2. Rereading that for the reasons they became accepted reveals lines 33-38: Womendoctors were a great advantage because they could treat women patients and maintaintraditional female modesty. That last is the cultural conventions to which (D) refers,reinforced one later in lines 45-50.

(A) Only if the number of male doctors was low would (A) possibly help to explain theacceptance of female doctors. But (A) doesnt tell us what that number was, so (A) fallsshort.

(B), (C) Talk about outside the scope! The Western sponsors and parishes are longforgotten by the time we get to 2. The local home parishes (C) have nothing to do withWestern women physicians reception in China; and the sponsors (B) are merely themechanism that got them there.

(E) And why would relations between Chinese officials and Western missionary boardsimpact at all on women doctors acceptance in China? Far-fetched . . . and unsupported bythe text in any case.

The harder you have to work to justify an answer choice, the more likely it is thatthat choice is wrong. Use the text to make the selection process less difficult.


K A P L A N 11

12. (D)Chinese medical practices come to the fore in s 2 and 3. We dont learn much, except forthe issues of female modesty mentioned during our work on Q. 11. 3 asserts that manyChinese women would have been unlikely to seek medical treatment but for the presenceof a female doctor in whose presence theyd (inferably) be more comfortable. This leads to(D)s inference that, customarily, male doctors didnt treat female patients.

(A) contradicts the passage: many Chinese women began to avail themselves of Westernmedicine at this time (lines 45-50).

(B) More women may have been treated at home than in hospitals, if the alternative was tosee a male doctor. But (B)s conclusion about overall medical care is unsupported by thetext.

(C) is wildly contrived. No financial obligation on the part of the doctor to the family isever mentioned. All we learn is that medicine helped some Chinese women becomefinancially independent.

(E) If anything, 3 suggests that Chinese women didnt ordinarily have the sameeducational opportunities that young men did, especially in medicine. (E) contradicts this.

Be on the lookout for overlapping questions in Reading Comp.: two or morequestions that test, or revolve around, the same issues. Never assume that everyquestion is independent of the others. Here, both Qs. 11 and 12 are related to theChinese convention of female modesty mentioned in s 2 and 3.


12 K A P L A N

Passage 3Early Music Movement(Q. 13-20)

Topic and Scope: Early music; specifically, the movement to have music performed as itwas performed when it was written.

Purpose and Main Idea: The authors purpose is to explore the questions raised by thismovement (which she describes as resembling a crusade), and that the questions areprofound and troubling (lines 12-13) conveys her main idea.

Paragraph Structure: 1 describes the early music movement, shoots it a little barb by wayof the crusade reference, grants that the movement has been of value, and then presentsthe main-idea sentence that the rest of the passage follows up on: the profound andtroubling questions raised by the movement.

One would expect that what follows would explore at least some of those questions, andsince two s follow, its not surprising that those questions are two in number. To make thestructure even clearer, the author supplies the nice continuation Keyword phrase inaddition at the beginning of 3 to essentially say that was one problem; now heresanother. 2 explains that demanding that a piece be played on instruments availableduring its composition carries with it a built-in problem: What if a piece was composedwith instruments in mind that hadnt even been invented yet? In that case, performing thepiece today on the earlier instrument that was available to the composer at the time wouldseem to degrade the artists vision. Beethovens first piano concerto is cited at length as onesuch piece.

3 poses a different troubling issue, expressed generally in lines 34-36 and illustrated bythe tempo issue. The gist of it is that the conducting (lines 37-46) and setting (lines 46-60) oforiginal tempos were both determined by different historical conditions from ours; anddenying that amounts to inadvertently [divorcing] music and its performance from . . .lifesomething the author finds troubling and obviously opposes.

The Big Picture:

Strive to become a good anticipatory reader. Consciously anticipate that when anauthor calls something a crusade, s/he may turn out to be critical of it. Consciouslyanticipate that when something raises profound and troubling questions, almostimmediately those questions (at least one main one, and possibly even more thanone) will be raised and addressed. Stay ahead of the author rather than several stepsbehind.

The Beethoven example in 2, and the two tempo examples in 3, are pretty technicalfor non-musicians to understand. Content yourself with understanding them inbroad outline (as discussed above), and delve deeper only when the questions seemto demand that you do so.


K A P L A N 13

The Questions:

13. (D)Line 30 appears in 2, whose purpose is to attack the assumption on the part of early musicadvocates that composers necessarily write for the instruments that exist at the time. Rereadthe whole deal, from line 20 on. A piano exactly contemporary with Beethovens firstpiano concerto would, we are told at the end, frustrate Beethoven. Sure, it would irritatehim to have to play the bad F-natural, because the instrument of the time lacked the highF-sharp that existed only in the composers imagination and not on the instrument itself. As(D) has it, a piano contemporary with Beethovens first piano concerto would be incapableof playing the high F-sharp that the melody calls for. (Note that the actual score was writtento accommodate the range of the limited pianohence the wrong note, the high F-natural that must have driven Ludwig batty.)

(A) The phenomenon of the inaudible time-keeping piano comes out of 3, and is notassociated with either Beethoven or line 30.

(B) Au contrairecheck out lines 23-25 again. Pianos in Beethovens day lacked the F-sharp,not the F-natural.

(C) Mozart and Haydn appear only in 3, so theres no reason to connect them to 2spiano, and no reason to assume that all three composers couldnt have used the same pianotype.

(E) First of all, as far as we know, Beethoven only contemplated revising his earlier work.And besides, it wouldnt have been the piano contemporary to the first concerto thatwould have prompted Beethovens revisions, but rather the more expansive and versatilepiano that came later on.

When a question mentions a line reference, be sure to think about the overallpurpose of the in which the line reference appears. Often, context is everything.

Beware of choices that spring from details from the wrong part of the passage. (A)and (C) are good examples of this common wrong answer type.

14. (A)This one is pretty much a slam dunk, reflecting as it does the crucial sentence in lines 11-13:The early music approach raises profound and troubling questions with respect toperformance. As mentioned above, this sentence is pregnant with promisewhat are theseproblems?and the answer is found in the remaining two s.

(B) gives the early music movement too much creditlargely successful is not ajudgment the author makesand to narrow the rest of the passage discussion merely tothe use of obsolete instruments leaves out most of what drives s 2 and 3: Beethovensimagined piano, the time-beating problem, and the tempo issues.

(C) keys off of a problem alluded to in 2 but falls far short of summing up the entirepassage.


14 K A P L A N

(D), (E) Neither the lack (D), nor the incomplete use (E), of information is ever alluded toas central to the authors interest in the early music movement.

When youre confident about an answer choice early in the set, you should still atleast glance at the remaining choices, but in a different way: with less respect. Dontwaste time evaluating them in depth; your task has shifted to simply making suretheyre as bad as they need to be, considering that youre pretty sure you alreadyhave the winner. It may not seem like this will save you much time, but a fewseconds gained on a handful of questions could very well add up to an extra minuteor two by the end of the section.

15. (D)The first piano concerto is introduced at line 20, and as such it acts as the evidence,mentioned in the previous sentence, that such eminent composers as Beethoven imaginedweird notes that the instruments of the day couldnt play. In particular, the piece featuresthat high F-sharp that only some hypothetical future piano could hit. (D) expresses notonly the point of mentioning the concerto, but the essence of 2 overall as a problem withthe early music movements premises.

(A) has it backwards. Beethoven was forced to include a wrong note in his score becausethe pianos at the time couldnt accommodate the correct melody. Only later did the rangeof pianos expand.

(B) Au contraire, Beethoven explicitly did anticipate the more sophisticated piano of thefuture as he imagined notes that contemporary pianos couldnt hit.

(C) Were told only that Beethoven thought about revising his earlier works, from which wecant infer that a revised version of his first piano concerto actually exists. Thus,Beethovens first piano concerto is not used here to show that early music advocates stickto original scores despite later revisions, because we dont even know that there is a revisedscore for this piece.

(E) Au contraire againthe piano available at the time Beethoven wrote the first pianoconcerto frustrated the great composers intentions by lacking the high F-sharp called forby the melody.

Check the context of any detail mentioned in a question stem. Often the detailspurpose is made clear (as it is here) by the text that directly precedes or follows it.

Beware of au-contraire choices, choices that provide the opposite of what werelooking for. Here, there are no fewer than three wrong choices that seem to contradictthe information in the passage.


K A P L A N 15

16. (B)Any reference to tempo must direct your attention to 3, and the reference to theMozart/Beethoven movements to lines 46-56. The last movement, were told (lines 49-50),was played slower in the 19th century than it is now, and the author explains why: Today,audiences dont applaud after each movement (as they used to) but only at the very end,and as a result musicians [are] forced into extra brilliance at the finale in order to generateapplause. If that habit were broken, if concerts went back to the old wayheres (B)thenit would be reasonable to suppose that the musicians wouldnt need to crank the tempo upat the end to generate audience enthusiasm; theyd probably slow it down to the oldtempo.

(A) refers back to the wrong . Its 2 that is concerned with instrument design.

(C) is the current practice, the one that causes a fast-paced finale.

(D) The inaudible piano is a separate issue from the one alluded to in the question; itdrops out as of line 46.

(E) Nowhere are we told that Wolfgang Amadeus and Ludwig Van did their ownconducting, not to mention what relation, if any, that would have to tempo.

Even when a question stem doesnt direct you to a specific or sentence, you need toconsider where in the passage the relevant text is likely to be found. This is why itsso important to construct a mental roadmap of the passage as you read through thefirst time.

17. (B)The second troubling question raised by the early music movement is its divorc[ing of]music and its performance from . . . life (lines 34-36). That criticism is followed up in 3by two specific examples: the inappropriate inclusion of the silent time-keeping piano,and the change in tempos due to changes in audience behavior. (B) is right on the money.

(A) The author is not in the business of undermining his own assertion, and the onlythings he rejects are some of the premises of the early music movement, but thats notwhat (A) refers to.

(C) 3 begins not with a statement of the movements assumptions, but an indictment ofone of its practices. That indictment is subsequently supported, not undermined.

(D) That phrase frequently provided is curiouswhats it based on? Anyway, 3sevidence is approvingly cited, not critically evaluated.

(E) The two specific cases (the silent piano; the tempo examples) are preceded by acriticism (lines 34-36) that theyre there to support. (E) has it backwards.

Use your Kaplan materials to get more familiar with the abstract rhetoric terms usedin LSAT questions like this one, especially generalization, assumption, andevaluation. (See also Q. 24, below.)


16 K A P L A N

18. (D)You cant weaken an argument until youve confirmed its evidence and conclusion. Thephrase can readily be explained by tells you that the conclusion has just been mentionedand the evidence is about to follow. So: The tempo differences between Mozarts andBeethovens day and our own is explained in terms of audience custom: Since in the olddays audiences applauded throughout the piece, the tempos during the piece were fasterback then; since todays audiences only applaud at the end, the tempo at the end is fasternow. But if, as (D) says, the applause during the piece was minimalif the real applausecame at the endthen the customs of yesterdays and todays audiences arent all thatdifferent, and an explanation of the differences in tempo must be sought elsewhere.

(A) and (E) are outside the scope: Neither the musicians amount of training (A), nor theaudiences knowledgeability (E), is remotely cited here, let alone cited as relevant to thetempo issue.

(B) The fact that breaks may have been longer then than now doesnt relate in anymeaningful way to the explanation offered by the author, which focuses on the effect ofaudience reaction on tempo. What happens at the end of each section is the relevant issuehere. We cannot infer what effects on audience reaction, and by extension, performancetempo, the length of the breaks between sections would have.

(C) may be tempting, since the author does seem to see a relationship between the tempo atwhich music is played and the audience applause that is desired. But (C) assumes that thephrase concern with the audience response translates to the seeking of applausewhichit neednt; and the argument certainly doesnt hinge on there being parity of concernbetween yesterdays musicians and todays. So even if (C) is true, the authors explanationis not affected.

Be careful when reading the question stem; the inclusion of the word inferred heredoesnt make this an Inference question. Theres a big difference between lookingfor the choice that must be true based on the text and the task were presented withherefinding the choice that, if true, would weaken the argument.

19. (D)The important word in the stem is recordings, which directs us to 3 in general and lines37-46 in particular. Youll recall that this takes us to the first of two extended examples ofwhat the author sees as a disturbing aspect of the early music movement, its tendency toseparate the performance of music from the real life of a bygone day. The recordings inquestion feature an obtrusive piano thump-thumping the time (lines 40-42); that piano isnominally accurate, because it did exist in the 1700s, but the fact that 18th-centuryaudiences barely heard it (lines 42-46) means that it is accurate in name only; the recordingssound itself is quite different from the 18th-century sound. The sense is that in this respectthe movement is crossing itself up, or as (D) puts it, performing music most UNlike theway it sounded at the time of its composition.

(A), (E) Both can be rejected out of hand because of their references to issues introducedlater in 3: tempo and intensity and excitement, respectively.


K A P L A N 17

(B) seems to tie lines 4-8 together with 3, resulting in an extremely weird statement. Wheredoes betray the influence come from, and where is the passage ever concerned withinfluences on the advocates of early music? Strange.

(C) has it exactly backwards. By insisting on a instrument that was present in the 1700s andending up with a sound that was not, the early music recordings are sacrificing aestheticintegrity for the sake of historical authenticity.

The harder you have to work to justify an answer choice, the more likely it is to beincorrect. Study the context of the detail in question, but dont wander too far fromit. (Many wrong answers do just that.)

20. (C)Again, as in Q. 19, remember that 3 explores the dichotomy between music and life. Inlife, says the final sentence, our concepts of musical intensity and excitement have . . .changed, which makes it ridiculous to insist on the original tempos of Mozart and Haydnsymphonies, since those tempos were based on audience custom; and customs, as (C)points out, change. We applaud differently because our tastes have changed. Only (C) evenremotely picks up on this.

(A) refers back to the time-keeping piano earlier in 3. Were way past that detail by thetime audience applause is under discussion.

(B), (D) Both do speak to changes in audiencestheir altered expectations of musiciansability (B) and their greater appreciation of musical structure (D). But neither change is anissue mentioned or even alluded to in the passage; all the author focuses on is audienceapplause as a reflection of excitement and dash.

(E) If so, then audiences today would likely applaud after those exciting early movements.But they dont. (E) is another au-contraire choice, contradicting the sense of the passage.

Questions arent totally independent of each other. Use your work on one questionto help you with others that seem to hinge on the same issue or the same part of thepassage.


18 K A P L A N

Passage 4U.S. Steel Industry(Q. 21-27)

Topic and Scope: The U.S. steel industry; specifically, the characteristics and relativecondition of the three major types of steel producers.

Purpose and Main Idea: The authors purpose is clearly announced in sentence 1: to showthat some branches of the steel industry are doing better than others in these troubledeconomic times. To achieve that purpose, he needs to describe those branches and thenexplain the success of some and the weakness of others. And thats just what our authordoes, carefully crafting his explanation as to why the minimills and specialty-steel mills aredoing O.K. while the integrated producers are hurting.

Paragraph Structure: The first sentence of 1, as weve just noted, announces the topic,scope, and purpose about as explicitly as any test-taker could wish. The rest of the namesand describes the three branches of the industry. If you sensed that the branchesdifferences would be crucial to the passage and hence to the questions, you may havetaken a few seconds to make a quick list of whats what, like so:

INTEGRATED: process iron ore & coal/wide range of steel/bigMINI: reprocess scrap steel/low-quality/limited range/cheap stuff/smallSPECIALTY: small/use scrap steel/expensive products/own R&D dept

2 begins by setting the mini and specialty mills apart from the larger integrated millstheyve avoided the economic problems of the latter and some are even quite profitable.The then focuses on the advantages of the two smaller branches, one of which theysharea use of new technology. Furthermore, each has its own separate advantage, weretold: Minimills produce only a few products (we heard that in 1) to be sold close tohome, while specialty-steel mills are flexible to the customers needs. This informationallows us to expand on the lists above in an effort to continue keeping track of the variouscharacteristics of each type of mill.

Having heard about how well the two smaller branches are doingand keeping theopening sentence in mindwere eager to hear about the woes of integrated producers,and thats just what 3 presents. Lines 29-32 are a laundry list of woes, but it seems that thebig problem, outlined in lines 32-49, is an inefficiency inherent in the entire integratedproduction process, something that (lines 39-49) the U.S. companies share with otherintegrated producers around the world.

After 3 has explored the weaknesses within integrated producers, 4 goes on to explicitlycompare them to their smaller and more profitable brethren, and the discussion is detailedbut not out of control. Note, for instance, that 4 begins by picking up on 3s technologytheme, highlighting the minimills and specialty mills technological efficiency. Note, too,that lines 57-63 simply repeat what weve already heard about minimills, that they sell anarrow range of cheap products close to home. Thats nothing new. Now its merely put tothe service of the first sentence of 1, which is reinforced at the very end: The big guys arehurting; the little guys are doing relatively OK.


K A P L A N 19

The Big Picture:

When youve determined the authors purpose, be sure to keep it in mindthroughout. Here, its very easy to get lost in the morass of detail about steelproduction unless you keep remembering the initial point from sentence 1: theauthors desire to show that some branches of the steel industry are doing betterthan others. Having that in mind every step of the way keeps you focused rightthrough line 65.

Many passages are based on some contrast or other. But some are so heavily basedon contrast that your main job becomes getting the contrasts under control. Here, wehave the basic differences among the three branches, as well as the morefundamental contrast between integrated producers (hurting) and the other two(doing well). Making lists of traits or terms associated with each mill type can helpyou manage the information much the way scratchwork helps in Logic Games.

The Questions:

21. (C)(C) reflects the authors stated purpose, the results of his investigation into the state of theU.S. steel industry, and the structure and content of that investigation. Its wording mayseem detailedbut, then, so is the passage. And all of the wrong choices have profoundproblems:

(A) alludes to a comparison between the U.S. and other nations that only occupies lines 39-49, and even then its a comparison between integrated producers only. Other nations donot merit inclusion in a main idea discussion for this passage.

(B) asserts an unwarranted distinction and then proceeds as if minimills were the wholestory.

(D) highlights the 19th centuryagain, merely a detail late in 3and implies an historicaloverview when the authors clear focus is on U.S. steel today.

(E)s misplaced focus on the future is as egregious as (D)s focus on the past. (E) also errs byblurring the distinctions among the three branches of the industry.

A passages main idea can be expressed in many ways. Look for the one choiceamong the five that sums up the authors topic, scope, and purpose, but dont insistthat your pre-phrasing match up exactly with what the testmakers give you.


20 K A P L A N

22. (A)Since four of the choices are true of minimills, it is likely that the right answer will insteadbe true of one of the other branches. Two effective tactics here: (1) using the passage (oryour homemade lists) to locate minimill details, and throwing out choices that reflectthem, or (2) seeking out a choice clearly associated with another branch but not withminimills (or, of course, one that has nothing to do with any branch). A clear contrastcomes in lines 23-28, and that generates the correct answer: Its the specialty mills thatpreserve flexibility in their operations (A), in contrast to the minimills narrow range.

(B), (E) Lines 23-28 and 59-61 indicate the minimills focus on local sales (B) and limitedproduct range (E).

(C) Minimills work only with scrap (lines 11-14), and have dispensed of the iron-smeltingprocess, including the mining . . . of raw materials (lines 52-56).

(D) Like specialty mills, minimills take advantage of new steel-refining technology(lines 21-22).

Your two options in an EXCEPT question are to locate the odd man out directly, orreject the wrong answers in turn. Usually, a combination of the two techniques willyield the point.

23. (C)The reference to Japanese integrated producers at line 43 is preceded by ...but this cannotexplain why, signaling that the purpose of the reference must be to rebut some assertionor explanation. Indeed, lines 39-42 mention a conclusion that one might make, that oldlabor-intensive machinery is the reason for the financial weakness of the U.S. steel industry,but that conclusion wont fly. If it were so, how come the Japanese companies, whosemachinery is new and less labor-intensive, are also having financial woes? The Japanesesituation shows, according to the author, that the weakness of the U.S. industry must not bedue to the labor-intensive machinery. (C) explains that use to which the detail is put.

(A) Au contraire, the Japanese and U.S. integrated producers have economic woes incommon.

(B) Au contraire, lines 46-49 confirm that ALL integrated producers share the samecommon technological denominator: inefficiency.

(D) Hardly. See lines 46-49, an inherently inefficient process since the 19th century.

(E) may be a true statement, but not one that the Japanese counterexample sheds any lighton.

When a question makes a line reference, be sure to consider its entire context, notjust its immediate context.


K A P L A N 21

24. (E)As weve seen, 3 outlines the problems plaguing integrated producers, after which onepossible reason for poor performance (labor-intensive machinery) is rejected and another(inherent inefficiency) is proposed in its place. All of that is (E) in a nutshell.

(A) ignores lines 29-39s detailing of the troubles of integrated producers, and then mixesup what follows: If anything, first we get a hypothesis (i.e. a working theory) thatscriticized, followed by an opposing view thats supported.

(B) is just words. The authors blaming the industrys problems on inefficiency rather thanmachinery does not constitute the resolution of a debate.

(C) A dilemma is an inherent contradiction. 3 points to no such paradox.

(D) More words, ignoring lines 29-39 altogether. And there is no move from the specific tothe general in 3.

Dont just take words like hypothesis and dilemma at face value. Be sure youknow what they mean, and factor in their meaning when considering answer choicessuch as these. Otherwise virtually all the choices will seem tempting.

25. (E)Your lists of details can be exceptionally useful in questions like this one. (So can areminder that s 1 and 4 are the main s comparing the three branches of the steel industry;almost certainly one or both of those s will yield Q. 25s answer.) The fundamentaldifference between integrated producers on the one hand, and specialty-steel mills (dittominimills) on the other hand, is that the former smelt iron ore and coal while the latter justwork with scrap. Lines 50-57 spell out that both of the smaller branches have dispensedalmost entirely with such front-end elements as (E)s blast furnaces.

(A), (D) Both are minimill details (lines 23-28). Specialty-steel mills retain flexibility.

(B) Au contraire, lines 17-20 tell us that specialty-steel mills share relative economic healthwith the minimills.

(C) distorts the example of the Japanese steel industry: The only Japanese counterpartsmentioned in the passage are the integrated producers, discussed in 3.

If the answer to a question could come from two different sas in this case from s1 and 4be sure to check both thoroughly. Do NOT go just for the first detail orchoice that looks good!


22 K A P L A N

26. (A)An interesting question of the analogy or parallel reasoning type. Four of the choicesface similar problems as integrated producers; we must find the odd man out. Your besttactic is to refresh your memory as to the problems of integrated producers, i.e. to reread3, and then skim the choices for parallels. One way or another you should be left with (A).It seems as if the only problem that integrated producers are not faced with is a shortage ofraw iron ore and coal. While everything else seems to be going wrong for the integratedmills, a lack of raw materials is never mentioned as a problem.

(B) shares the problem of excessive labor costs (line 31).

(C) describes the problem of heavy capital expenditures cited in line 31, and again in lines50-54.

(D) speaks to manufacturing inflexibility (line 32).

(E) Old and less automated equipment is the problem here, as it is for the integratedproducers in lines 32-34.

Remember that picking a wrong choice simultaneously means that youre rejectingthe right one. When reviewing your wrong choices, keep asking yourself why yourejected the credited choice. By doing so, youll be able to recognize bad habits thatyou can start to break.

27. (E)By this time, your familiarity with the problems facing integrated producers is probablykeen enough that you can study each choice, in whatever order, and discern fairly readilywhich one best matches up with the authors explanation for the condition of this segmentof the steel industry:

(A) has to do with a nations economic health, not that of one of its industries.

(B) If integrated producers share a characteristic with the small and profitable specialty-steel mills, then that weakens any explanation about why the former are doing badly.

(C) The Japanese integrated producers are also in trouble. If the ones in the U.S. mimickedtheir quality, reduced energy, and reduced labor, then matters might improve, but thatsnot what were looking for here. The fact that theyre adopting the Japanese style doesnt tiein with why they are currently in the condition the author describes.

(D) speaks to efforts on the part of integrated producers to improve their lot; again, as with(C), that is outside the scope of the question of why they are down on their luck in the firstplace.


K A P L A N 23

(E) suggests that the front-end task of iron-smeltingin which we know integratedproducers are engagedis capital-intensive and unprofitable (lines 50-57), so much so thatin other countries it requires government subsidy. This is solid evidence that, as the authoralleges, iron smelting is indeed a drag on the integrated producers economicperformance.

Strengthen/Weaken the Argument questions are more common in the LR sectionsthan here in Reading Comp., but as we see from this question and Qs. 10 and 18earlier, they do surface occasionally. Our task, just as in LR, is to consider eachchoice as true, and evaluate the effect it would have on the argument at hand. Also,we would expect such questions to contain the classic wrong answer types: ones thatsomehow fall outside the scope of the passage or the under consideration, or onesthat do the opposite of what the question is looking for (like weakener (B) here).

Keep what youre looking for firmly in mind. When looking for the choice thatsupports an argument of why things are bad, avoid choices (like (C) and (D) here)that posit what is being done because things are bad. Those are two completelydifferent issues.

24 K A P L A N

SECTION II:

LOGICAL REASONING

LSAT PREP ________________________________________________________________ LSAT Test VI Explained: Section II

K A P L A N 25

1. (C)Law without enforcement is not law. So to the author, a necessary condition for real lawmust be enforcement. Thats not one of the answer choices per se, but the author goes onto define enforcement not just as announcing forbidden acts, but as punishing those acts,and without favor. This is what (C) is getting at: the authors deeper definition ofenforcementthat without which real law doesnt exist.

(A) lacks context. Our author would consider impartial and just use of power as a part ofreal law, but not its arbitrary and unjust use. So (A) leaves matters too vague.

(B) Law that merely authorizes enforcement, without its being carried through, would fallshort of the authors definition of real law.

(D) distorts the stimulus. The author sets out to specify when law is and is not real, andthats independent of whether someone understands laws purpose.

(E) Sentence three makes it clear that real law is not merely (E)s definition, but involvesthe punishment of violators as well.

It is often difficult to pre-phrase answers to Inference questions, unless the questionexplicitly asks for the authors main point or conclusion. In that case a solid attemptat pre-phrasing can really pay off.

2. (A)[T]he accumulating datathe list of ailments suffered by runners, both newcomers andveteransare the evidence that suggest the conclusion: The human body isnt built towithstand joggings stresses. Well, the first sentence merely indicates a correlation that hasbeen seen between jogging and the ailments. In other words, the fact that these ailments areseemingly connected to jogging tells us that joggers have these ailments, but not thatjogging necessarily causes these ailments. However, to draw her conclusion, the authormust believe that the connection is in fact causal, choice (A). If she didnt so believe, shewouldnt use this evidence to draw her categorical conclusion that the data suggest that thehuman frame is not built to withstand the rigors of jogging.

(B), (D) Both bring up an unwarranted distinction between jogging and other sports.Whether these same ailments are or are not present in other sports is beside the point in anargument about the dangers of jogging only.

(C) goes against the grain herethe author explicitly rules out differences between joggersexperience levels as a factor in injuries.

(E) The human species is way too broadthe scope here is limited to joggers.

Use Kaplans Denial Test to confirm whether youve identified an authors necessaryassumption. Remember how it works: if the answer is a correct assumption, itsdenial will contradict the text.


26 K A P L A N

Make sure youre clear on the difference between causation and correlation.Sometimes, as is the case here, an author will treat evidence that two things appeartogether (that is, a correlation) as evidence that one causes the other. Evidence of atrue causal relationship must be very explicit, and here, we really have no hardevidence that jogging causes the ailments listed.

3. (D)Though this is nominally an Inference question, the stimulus has the sound of a paradox:Theres no conclusion per se, just two facts connected by a however. First we learn howthe Pitcombe students label themselves politically (and notice that the percents25%conservative, 24% liberal, 51% middle of roadadd up to 100%, so everyones covered).Yet a whopping 77% of the group hold a liberal position on a certain set of issues. Well,wed expect self-proclaimed liberals to do so, but even if every single Pitcombe liberal plusevery single middle-of-the-roader held the liberal position, that would only account for75% of the students; the remaining 2% would have to come out of the conservative wing.So (D) has to be true: At least some conservatives must hold that liberal position.Otherwise the 77% figure could not be achieved.

(A) As weve just seen, IF all self-described liberals and middles hold the liberal position,then some conservatives must. And if some of the liberals and middles do NOT hold thatposition, then that just means that more conservatives must hold it. So (A) is by no meansnecessarily true; the math doesnt require it.

(B), (C) Its not clear whether not endorsing a position is the same as opposing it, buteither way, (B) and (C) cannot be inferred. If you assumed that not endorsing meansopposing, then you may have concluded that (B) is possible only, while (C) is impossible.

(E) Just as opposition is technically never mentioned, so is a conservative positionnever mentioned. And after all, even if some liberals do not hold the liberal view, it needntbe true that some of them support a conservative stance.

When an argument throws numbersespecially percentsat you, do some quickarithmetic and see how (and whether) all the data jibe. Often the question will hingeon an overlap between groups, either one the author has failed to see or, as here in Q.3, one that has to exist.

4. (E)Perusing the stem first confirms that while Victor is trying to rebut Lenore, he does sobadlyand we have to identify the weakness. Lenores point is the virtual impossibility ofwriting history objectively, her evidence the inevitable personal bias of historians. Aproper rebuttal would attack that inevitability, or mention some unbiased historians byname, or point out other factors that might minimize bias. Instead, Victor simply saysHey, some bias and biased people have been detected; therefore, those detectives at leastmust be objective. Hello? Cannot a biased individual perceive someone elses bias? Surehe can: Such a person might be skilled at detecting the biases in others yet not be aware ofhis own. Identifying someone elses bias is not, then, proof of ones objectivity, and Victorsrebuttal fails because of (E).


K A P L A N 27

(A) Two problems. First, Lenore is not attacking bias, as (A) would have it; she is arguingfor its inevitability. Second, yes, Victors logic is faulty, but he isnt necessarily biasedhimself.

(B) Since Victor isnt arguing that ALL historians are unbiased, he neednt address anyexceptions to that generalization. What he needs to do is prove that some historians are notbiased; and as weve seen, he falls short in that effort.

(C) To rebut Lenore he doesnt have to provide chapter-and-verse documentation aboutthe bias thats been found. He must confirm the objectivity of the detectives.

(D) Victors argument doesnt rely on rejecting a catalog of biases, just on proving whetherthe detectors of bias are themselves bias-free. Which, of course, it fails to do.

When youre asked to identify an arguments flaw, sometimes thinking about whatmight make the argument sound can lead you to the flaw at hand. Here in Q. 4, forinstance, considering the kind of effective rebuttal that Victor could construct mayhelp you see where his effort fails.

5. (B)Why must the thieves have entered through the basement (i.e. below ground level)?Because the security guard says they didnt come in on ground level or above. That isdifferent from evidence proving that alternative means of entrance were not used. Theessence of the logic is a flatly factual statement of a phenomenon that must have occurred,but a statement that is based on a subjective assessment that dismisses other alternatives.That describes (B) pretty well, as well as the stimulus, doesnt it? The competitors claimabout what cannot have happened is used to support a flat assertion about what must havehappened.

(A), (E) The evidence in each choice is factual (the results of the judging in (A), and (E)sstatement about the late filers). But the stimulus evidence is a claim that some party ismaking, and an argument that lacks that element cannot be parallel to the original.

(C) The conditional If the census is to be believed has no parallel in the stimulus, nordoes the movement from small groups (married men vs. married women) to large (all menvs. all women).

(D) is, yes, based on a claim that isnt factually proven. But we are looking for a claim thatsomething could not have occurred as evidence for a conclusion about what must be thecase. So the evidence in (D) falls short, and the conclusion that the product is safe for othercreatures isnt like the stimulus conclusion either.

When you cant symbolize the terms of a Parallel Reasoning stimulus algebraically,step back from the content to characterize the nature of the argument under analysis(as we do, above, in the sentence beginning The essence of the logic...). Then youcan compare its nature to that of the choices, rejecting the ones that deviate as youmove swiftly to discovering the truly parallel choice.


28 K A P L A N

6. (C)The structure couldnt be laid out more clearly: High-tech medicine is driving costs up(conclusion); the cataract example illustrate[s] why (evidence). The example goes on toindicate that now that technology has made the surgery easier and cheaper, more and morepeople are having it done, thus driving up the total cost. Hang on a second, back up, youmight have said to yourself. Didnt the author just say that cataract surgery is cheapernow? Indeed he did, and yet he concludes that total costs are up. It has to be true, then, as(C) says, that whatever money is saved due to the lower price of the procedure is offset bythe increased number of patients opting for the surgery.

(A) That the surgery was not always effective 10 years ago is a far cry from saying thatfew surgeries were effective. For all we know, there were still many effective surgeriesback then, even though the surgery is more effective today.

(B)s scope is the futurewhat is likely to happen in the long runbut that cannot beinferred from this argument set in the past and present.

(D) We are explicitly told that what is driving up costs is not the elderlys demand forsurgery, but high-tech medicine. Cataract surgeryadmittedly an ailment of the elderlyis used as an example, not identified as the main culprit.

(E) seems to run counter to the fifth sentence: the passage explicitly indicates that thesurgery is cheaper now, which strongly suggests that its more affordable now than it wasten years ago.

Be on the lookout at all times for au-contraire choicesthose that are the oppositeof what the author believes or what the question is looking for.

7. (E)Four of the choices weaken the explanation of why so many more people are having theircataracts done; therefore the right answer must either strengthen it, or be outside the scope.And remember what that explanation is: theyre going for the surgery, says our author,because the technology makes it less painful, more successful, and cheaper. Theres reallyno way to pre-phrase herewe simply have to check the choices, looking for the one thateither strengthens the argument, or is irrelevant to it.

(A) asserts that there are more people now. More people could lead, in general, to morepeople needing or wanting surgery, which on its face could explain the increase.

(B) strongly suggests that the prevalence of the disease may have increased. An increasedneed for cataract surgery would certainly explain an increase in its incidence.

(C) asserts that there are more elderly now, and the author admits that elderly people areprone to cataracts. As with (A), this change in the demographics would suggest anotherreason besides improved technology for the increase in surgeries.


K A P L A N 29

(D) The fact that more people dont have to pay for the procedure could also reasonablyaccount for an increased number of people opting for it. This, too, would thereforechallenge the authors argument that the increase in cataract operations is due to thebenefits conferred by the new technology.

(E) is too vague to challenge the authors explanation. Are these unlucky patients victimsof the new technology or the old? We simply dont know. Since (E) doesnt differentiatebetween unsuccessful surgery then and now, and doesnt even tell us what percentage ofsurgeries fail, we have to consider the consequences of unsuccessful surgery in general tobe irrelevant to the specific line of reasoning here. (E)s therefore the one we want.

Study each Logical Reasoning stem carefully, before reading the stimulus. Often thestem will give you clues as to what to read for, and sometimes (as here) even do partof your work for you. Q. 7s stem tells us the authors purpose (to explain) and anaspect of the scope (increased cataract operations). This gives us a head start onanalyzing the argument.

8. (A)The paradox, simply put, is that employers dont want to hire workers who once servedunder non-compete agreements, even though the courts have pretty much ruled that thesepromises not to work for a competitor arent binding. There must be something about theprocess that new employers find off-putting . . . and (A) describes it: the costs and badpublicity of going through a lawsuit, even one that (the author implies) the new employeris likely to win. (A) would explain the new hirers reluctance.

(B), if anything, would deepen the paradox, by narrowing the applicant pool to competitorsemployees, making it even more puzzling that firms would balk at hiring them.

(C)s focus is on the old employer, the one who imposes the non-compete agreements. Butthe paradox has to do with the new hirer.

(D), like (C), has its focus on the wrong parties. That most current employees are loath togo to a competitor is irrelevant to the issue of those (whatever their number) who do wantto switch firms, but cant because of the new firms qualms.

(E) suggests that firms would be eager to hire employees who have establishedrelationships with clients while working at other companies, which doesnt explain whycompanies would be hesitant to hire employees bound by non-complete agreements whenthey know those agreements arent binding.

Once youve restated the paradox, think about alternative possibilities that theauthor may not have considered. Doing so is often the fast track to the right answerin a Paradox question.


30 K A P L A N

9. (C)Both women are concerned with how to make a country admirable. Inezs pointincontrast to Mary Anns point that what matters is that a country be strongis that a countrybe moral. The evidence? If its actions are moral, then it is admirableand she points outthat countries can be strong but most UNadmirable indeed. All of this presupposes that acountrys moral compass can be evaluatedor, as (C) puts it, that one can assign moralvalue to countries actions. If (C) is false, if morality is not a scale on which countries can beweighed, then Inezs argument for judging countries on a moral basis is blown away.

(A) Inezs argument is conditional: If a country is morally good, then its admirable. Doesthere have to be even one country that meets Inezs standard? No. For all we know, everycountry falls short, but this wouldnt alter Inezs argument, so (A) need not be assumed.

(B) Inez doesnt deny that a country can be both strong and moral; her counterexamplesmerely indicate that strength is not a necessary condition of admirableness, so herargument does not rely on (B).

(D) Citizens beliefs are never mentioned by Inez, so she neednt be assuming anythingabout them.

(E) merges the issues of morality and strength together in an ominous assertion that themorally good country had better use its strength to get other countries to shape up, or else.This is a far cry from Inezs rather idealistic, even genteel point of view; her argumentsurely doesnt presuppose this.

Be on the lookout for the classic wrong answer types. Citizens beliefs (D) are outsidethe scope, and therefore can have nothing to do with the necessary presuppositionhere. Similarly, (E) confounds the whole issue by altering the argument fromindividuals assessing the morality of a country to countries imposing theirmoralities on othersby whatever means necessary, no less! Its distorted, itsextreme; it cant be the assumption here.

10. (E)Somethings not right. All of Johns friends say they know a really healthy 40-year smoker(thats what they claim to be true), but John doesnt know one, and he is not unique amonghis friends in this respect. That quoted phrasea statement of factmeans that at least oneof them does not know such a smoker. Since they all claim they do, at least one of Johnsfriends is not telling the truth. Thats (E).

(A) The proven liars are among Johns friends, who may or may not smoke themselves.

(B) Intent isnt the issue, nor is exaggeration. The issue is the contradiction between whatJohns friends profess to be true, and what is true.

(C) For all we know, each of Johns friends who professes to know a really healthy 40-yearsmoker is talking about a different smoker! They dont all have to be referring to the sameone.


K A P L A N 31

(D) Most is what kills this one. It only need be true that one of Johns friends is lying.

The LSAT tests your ability to interpret words and phrases correctly. Notunique...in this respect means that there are some who are like him in this respectthat is, some who also dont know a healthy 40-year smoker. This paraphrase of thetext is the key to getting the point.

Some literally means at least one. Thats all it can be inferred to mean.

11. (B). . . [I]t is imperative that . . . , must be able to . . . , is . . . unable to . . . : Phrases likethese are sending you a signal that the authors main interest is in necessary conditionsconditions that are required for some result to occur. Sentence 1 says that a necessarycondition of democracys survival is the average citizens informed opinions, and sentence2 narrows that to focus on opinions about science. Sentence 3 comes along to assert that inthe face of todays scientific developments, the average Joe or Jane cannot absorb enoughinfo to hold such informed opinions. But, as weve already seen, without such opinions,democracy cant survive; so it has to be true, as (B) has it, that todays scientificdevelopments threaten democracy.

(A) The author never mentions scientists, so we cannot infer from her remarks that theyhave the responsibility to attack the problem. For all we know, other groups such asscience writers or educators can help the public form meaningful scientific opinions.

(C) Democracys survival requires that the average Joe or Jane, not that every Joe or Jane,hold informed opinions on science. Also, the phrase scientifically literate isnt used inthe stimulus, so we cant be sure that it applies.

(D) is a classic extreme choice, in that it blows things way out of proportion. The stimulusimplies that extremely advanced scientific knowledge threatens democracy, not, as (D)would have it, that any scientific knowledge is bad for democracy. The notion that sciencemay be getting a little difficult for the average citizen to comprehend doesnt lead to thenotion that the least scientific knowledge would yield the best democracy.

(E) tests necessity/sufficiency confusion in a classic way. Citizens having informedopinions on science are necessary for democracys survival but arent necessarily sufficientfor it. In other words, democracy could be destroyed (for other reasons) even if everysingle citizen becomes scientifically informed and opinionated.

When a condition necessary for a result does not occur, the result cannot occur.Keep this principle in mind, as it is at the heart of most LR questions that hinge onnecessity.


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12. (E)However signals where the discrepancy that we are to resolve is to be found. The topicis the use of the fossil record near a former glacier to date the appearance of a warmclimate, and heres the apparent paradox: While the insect record suggests that right afterthe glacier melted, a warm climate appeared, the pollen record in the same area suggeststhat the warm climate came much, much later. (E) does nothing to explain this difference indates: beetles may be older than many plants, but there could be plenty of other pollen-bearing plants that are as old or that even predate the beetles. (E) is therefore irrelevant tothe seeming contradiction in the stimulus, and is thus the choice we seek that does not helpto explain the discrepancy.

The four wrong choices all paper over the dating discrepancy in different yet valid ways:

(A)s solution is that the fossils were cold-weather beetles, who returned to the area whilethe climate was still cold. End of discrepancy: The pollen record now reigns uncriticized.

(B) explains how plants might take longer to appear in a warm area, and thus suggests whythe plant fossil record might give the impression that the warming occurred later than itactually did.

(C) Since (C) shows how beetles could survive in a barren post-glacial area before thearrival of plants, it explains why the beetle fossils antedate the plant fossils.

(D) indicates that the plant record may not accurately reflect the real date of new plantgrowth following the melting of the glacier, which suggests that the pollen record may notnecessarily accurately reflect the onset of the warm period. If this is true, the discrepancyin the fossil record is no longer surprising.

In a discrepancy or paradox question, be sure to paraphrase the paradox insimple terms in your head before you plunge into the answer choices.

Previewing the stem can help you in many different ways. In the case of thisEXCEPT question, the stem tells you that the answer you seek is the one thats notrelevant to the discrepancy in question, or the one that in fact even deepens themystery.

13. (E)The paragraph lays out a chain of cause and effect that begins with the overall point madein the first sentence: Using these new clean-coal technologies in factories could reducepollutants and acid rain. How? By cutting a lot of noxious emissions (sentence 2), which inturn would reduce noxious ozone production in the troposphere (sentence 3). You donthave to understand what all of this technical terminology means; you simply have to seethat in the authors mind, the factory technology strategy mentioned in sentence 1 couldlead to a reduction of tropospheric ozone in sentence three, choice (E). Put another way: Ifone thing (new tech in factories) could lead to another (reduced emissions), and the second(reduced emissions) does lead to a third (reduction in noxious ozone), then its fair to saythat the first could lead to the third.


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(A) The author is way too vague on which of the pollutants contributes to acid rain for (A)to be a valid inference. For all we know, sulfur dioxide has little or no impact on the acidrain phenomenon.

(B) Nitrogen pollutants are all that affects noxious ozone formation, as far as this passage isconcerned; sulfur dioxide may have little or no role. (And anyway, it says that noxiousozone is formed in the tropospheredont think there are too many factories there.)

(C) distorts the statistic that these new technologies could cut sulfur dioxide emissions by80%. For all we know, even one per cent of sulfur dioxide is unsafe.

(D) The concept of careful design is never raised here, and is so vague that it cannot bepart of a proper inference. More importantly, (D) is about designing new factories, whilethe stimulus is about reconfiguring existing ones.

In Inference questions, be on the lookout for terms (like (D)s careful design) thathave no bearing on the text. Such choices are invariably wrong. (See also (B) and (C)in Q. 18, below.)

14. (D)There are lots of characters here, so make sure you keep them straight. First, theres JoshuaSmith, who wrote a book. Then theres a book editor who criticizes the book asimplausible. Finally, theres the author of the stimulus, who criticizes the editorscriticism, stating that it is unwarranted. Got all that? Now, on what grounds does thestimulus author feel the editors criticism of the book is off base? Each of the incidents inthe novel could very well have happenedin other words, each incident is plausible.But just because the individual events ring true doesnt mean that they will do likewisewhen strung together. The author is committing what is sometimes called the part towhole fallacy, the assumption that that which is true of the parts must be true of thewhole. (D) states the flaw; the given characteristic mentioned is plausibility.

(A) and (C) both key off the sideswipe at the editor in sentence 2, but that catty reference tothe editors previous off-base criticisms is just background information, not central to theauthors rebuttal. (Note that that entire phrase could be dropped from the paragraph withno damage to the logic.)

(B) criticizes the author for relying on peoples judgment concerning whether anindividual incident is plausible. Granted, we might be mistaken concerning what isplausible. But the fact remains that even if each event in the book is plausible by itself, thebook as a whole could be implausible. So (B) fails to address the central issue here.

(E) The evidence isnt necessarily relevant only to those who already believe theconclusion. One could accept the evidence that each of the novels incidents is plausible,yet reject the conclusion that the entire novel is likewise.

Use Kaplans PrepTest explanations to learn about the various types of faulty logicperennially tested on the LSAT. Take careful notes on them all. For another exampleof part:whole weakness, see Section III, Q. 4.


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15. (C)The conclusion is that the skills needed for creative research are teachable and learnable,but not a single word in the evidence directly mentions skills or creative research. Allwere told is that Thomson taught tons of physicists of great distinction, so two keyassumptions are at work here. First, the author must assume that Thomsons distinguishedstudents do, in fact, have creative research skillsbut this isnt listed as an answer choice.Second, she must assume that at least some of those distinguished students lacked creativeresearch skills before they met up with Thomson. After all, if they were all fully creativeresearchers beforehand, then Thomsons influence wouldnt support the conclusion,would it? That second assumption is what we get in (C).

(A) The argument could work even if (A) were false, even if Thomson were relativelyunknown and all his students came out of his own home town. Thus the Kaplan DenialTest proves that (A) isnt a necessary assumption.

(B) neednt be assumed, because even if Thomson taught some people who were neverrecognized for any accomplishment, the author still has the eminent students to supporther argument.

(D) Other fields have no role in this argument. (D) raises an unwarranted comparisonbetween other fields and physics, and the validity of the argument does not depend on anysuch comparison.

(E) isnt a necessary assumption either, because Thomsons successful students may be rareexceptions. The authors point is that creative research skills can be taught, and thepossibility that few successful researchers are taught by renowned scholars (the denial of(E)) doesnt hinder that argument.

Be watchful for terms mentioned in the conclusion that are absent from the evidence(such as skills and creative research here). Recognizing such scope shifts isoften the key to spotting the authors necessary assumption or nailing down thearguments logical flaw.

16. (E)Only the phrase explanation of the difference described marks this as a Paradoxquestion, but thats enough; we are indeed asked to find a choice that resolves an apparentcontradiction contained in the argument. We are told of a seemingly inconsistent use ofwater power by the Romans: extensive in the boonies, none at all around the cities. Thatsure sounds odd, yes? But a pre-phrase is certainly possible here: We can search for anchoice that speaks to city conditions that would somehow render water power unnecessaryor even detrimental, and the latter is what (E) provides. The possibly inflammatory effectof introducing water power in and around cities (social unrest) would certainly argueagainst its use, and does help us to better understand the situation described in thestimulus.

(A) is evidence of Roman water expertise (which the author grants in the first sentence) butfails to address why such water use would stop at the city limits.


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(B) just says that in the cities, water was available all year round with some seasonalvariation. But so what? If anything that would deepen the paradox, making it even morepuzzling that all that available water wasnt used by the Romans to make energy.

(C) is a wash: Water power was vulnerable, but damage from sabotage could be readilyfixed. Thats all well and goodbut were right back where we started: Why wasnt it usedin and around cities?

(D) It would stand to reason that areas not using water power would have some energysource. But that still doesnt answer the question why not use water power in the citieswhen its used in the more outlying regions? All of the wrong choices leave this centralquestion unanswered, while (E) provides a satisfactory explanation.

Read unfamiliar question stems carefully, so that you can recognize familiarquestion types that are somehow in disguise. Recognizing this one as essentially aParadox question helps us to discard the choices that have no bearing on thesurprising circumstance.

17. (B)The stem is a little confusing and requires careful interpreting: It means On what groundsdoes the reviewer criticize the book she is reviewing? Well, she does two things: object toone of the three alleged energy storage methods (electricity), and claim that at least threeothers have been left out. That means the book is guilty of sins of both commission andomissionwhich is more or less (B) in a nutshell: One of the methods, electricity, is wrong(inaccurate), and others have been left out (the list is not exhaustive).

(A) distorts the main issue, which is not Which storage method is most basic? but israther What are the basic storage methods?

(C) The use of energy is (C)s concern, but not that of the book under review nor thereviewer herself.

(D), (E) The effectiveness of energy storage methods is wholly outside the scope. Note (E)stwo additional problems: (E), like (A), seems to believe that the issue is Which method ismost basic?; and (E) creates an unwarranted distinction between electricity and the others.

Many wrong choices deviate from the scopea healthy reminder to keep theauthors scope in mind throughout your reading of each stimulus and set of choices.


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18. (E)Previewing the stem, we see that we need to discern the authors main point. When theauthor begins by saying that something is no mystery, its a good bet that his point willbe the mysterys solution, and so it is here. Those unfamiliar with the term figurativepainting must figure out that it means recognizable images, and you can do so bycombining the first two sentences. The author figures that in the 1970s, people wanted toempathize with paintings, and puzzling over abstract art didnt afford this opportunity; heequates lack of realism with abstraction in the final sentence, and asserts that abstract artleft people alienated. So what explains the revival of figurative art in t

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