Reading comp PrepTest 156 · Section 1 · Question 12

Passage

Passage A  What public interest is served by an earmarked tax for the arts? This is a most important question, Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic:
Social Science

Passage A

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Question, insufficient answer
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Question: Does taxpayer-funded for the arts serve a public interest?
    • Why most important — Only way to justify it
    • Insufficient answer: Lots of orgs, so diverse audiences (why not privately fund?)


Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's answer
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Answer - Left to private sector, art won't be equitably distributed
    • No money or regions without cultural offerings left behind


Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Why the arts are important
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Build social ties
    • Participating also leads to civic engagement (Examples - Voting/volunteering)


Passage B

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Requirement for taxpayer funding of arts
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Benefit: Incidental benefits (Example: Tourism)
    • Requirement: Direct benefit to public — More people enjoy better art


Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Why art funding doesn't meet requirement
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Better art isn't guaranteed
    • Can't guarantee more widespread enjoyment
    • Why? Selection committees pick subsidized art, so most people don't enjoy it


Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Comparison, thought experiment, conclusion
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Comparison: National defense — Art different (can't buy own defense)
    • Thought experiment: Give people money to buy their own art (ridiculous)
    • Wrong for government to choose what people like, so not justified


Main Points:

Passage A: Public funding of the arts is justified because the private sector can't equitably distribute art, and engagement with art increases civic activities and social bonds.



Passage B: There can be no justification for the public funding of the arts because it's wrong for the government to decide what artistic experiences people should enjoy.



Key Lines (P(aragraph)X, S(entence)Y)

Passage A:

  • P1, S1 - Question
  • P1, S2 - Requirement for answer
  • P1, S3 - Insufficient answer
  • P2, S1 - Answer
  • P2, S2 - Reason
  • P3, S1 - Another reason


Passage B:

  • P1, S2 - Requirement
  • P2, S1 - Failure to meet requirement
  • P2, S4 - Reason for failure
  • P3, S6 - Another reason for failure
  • P3, S8 - Conclusion


Meta-Structure? Relationship Between Passages?

Relationship — Opposing Viewpoints: While only Passage A explicitly asks a question, both passages provide an answer to it. Passage A's author argues that "public support of the arts is, in fact, eminently justifiable" (PA, P2, S1), while the author of Passage B comes to the opposite conclusion in stating that "there can be no justification for arts subsidies" (PB, P3, S8). Since they hold opposed opinions on the same topic — a topic that is central to each passage — we should view those opinions as the main points of each passage, as reflected above. (This is reinforced by the Question/Answer Meta-Structure analysis for Passage A, below.)



Question/Answer (Passage A): Passage A opens up with a question. This generally means that the author will provide an answer or a set of answers, and the preferred answer is the main point. Here, although the author raises an insufficient answer in P1, S3 ("not enough to claim"), the author does eventually answer that public subsidies for the arts are justified (P2, S1). After that, the author provides reasons for why that's the case. As such, the author's support for public arts subsidies is the main point, reflected in our summary above.



Examples (Both): Both passages bring up an example to prove a minor point. In Passage A, the author cites two examples of the types of civic activities that become more common for those engaged in the arts (PA, P3, S3). Passage B sees the author bringing up an example of an incidental benefit of support of the arts - tourism (Pb, P1, S1). Since these are limited and incidental to the main point, we should expect, at most, one question on each of them.



Comparison (Passage B): The author of Passage B compares national defense to culture at the beginning of Paragraph 3. This contrast is used to prove the main point — there are differences between the two that justify public spending on the former but not the latter. This comparison builds directly to the main point of the argument, so we should expect a question on it.



Last Thoughts?



Passage B starts with an interesting feature — a concession. Normally, we don't see authors lead with exceptions or concessions to their argument. However, this author concedes there is "admittedly" a benefit of public subsidies for the arts. And yet, the author's main point is that there is"no justification" for such subsidies. Since this is an odd way to start off a passage, there might be an Argument Structure question about it, so we should think about why he does it. Since it's a concession, it's likely to show that he has some respect and understanding for the opposing argument to strengthen the audience's willingness to listen to his argument against it. That's the general idea behind a concession, and it makes sense here.



Also, we know that the authors reach the opposite conclusion on the same central topic, so we should expect questions about the differences between the two passages!

Question prompt

The authors would be Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Humanities

Answer choices

  1. A
    build social capital
    Why choice A matches the stem

    Question Type:
    Point at Issue

    Strategy Overview:
    Review the main points of the two passages, then use that to head to the answers and find a point at issue

    Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
    Normally, we'd spend time thinking about what elements show up in both passages, and where the points of disagreement are. However, in these two passages, we know that the authors reach diametrically opposed conclusions.

    Passage A argues that the arts build community cohesion, and thus it provides a benefit and should be subsidized.

    Passage B argues that a direct benefit of public spending on the arts can't be shown because people like different things and don't want the government deciding what art they can see, and thus spending isn't justified.

    Since their main points are a point at issue, we should use that to guide us through the answers without spending a lot of time thinking through specific points over which they disagree.

    Answer Choice Explanation:
    (PA, P3, S1; PB, P1, S2; PB, P3, S8) This is a tricky answer, but we know that passage A discusses social capital, so we should dig in. As we just noted, passage A argues that tax-funded arts subsidies are beneficial because they build social capital, and thus they are justified. So the author of passage A agrees with this answer.

    At first, it might appear as if the author of passage B doesn't have an opinion on this. However, that author argues that these subsidies aren't justified, and that a requirement for them being justified is that they directly benefit the public. If the author thought they built social capital, then the author would believe that such a direct benefit can be shown, and thus they'd meet that requirement for public subsidies. So the author of passage B doesn't think that art subsidies provide such a benefit. This means that the author of passage B disagrees with this answer choice, making it correct.

    Key Takeaway:
    This answer highlights a trick that the LSAT likes to pull in some Point at Issue questions. Such questions often present answers that seem like they are beyond the scope of one argument when they're actually in scope. How do those dastardly test writers get away with this trick? By having the argument feature a generalization. Here, passage B's argument claims that publicly funded arts do not directly benefit the public. This generalization allows us to infer that the author of passage B would disagree with any claim that publicly funded arts provide a specific direct benefit. So the author of passage B may have never explicitly mentioned "social capital," we can use the generalization to validly infer that the author has an opinion on whether publicly funded arts produce social capital.

  2. B
    provide any benefits
    Why choice B is not credited
    (PB, P1, S1) This answer can sound good at first, since passage A argues that such subsidies are justified while passage B argues that they're not. And while passage A highlights at least one benefit of these subsidies, passage B does, as well. The author of passage B argues that art subsidies provide "incidental benefits," such as increased tourism, just not a direct benefit of spending money on something the taxpayers wouldn't buy themselves. It may take a bit of digging, but this answer choice actually features a point of agreement upon review.
  3. C
    negatively impact private arts Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    While both passages mention private support of the arts, neither discusses whether increased public decreases private support. Passage A asks whether private support is adequate, while B notes that justifying public funding requires such funding to lead to more and better art than what could be funded privately. Since the authors do not comment on whether public funding decreases private funding, this cannot be a point at issue between the authors.
  4. D
    guarantee better art than Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    (PA, P2, S2; PB, P2, S1) Passage A talks about the equitable distribution of privately funded vs. publicly funded art, not the quality of art. And Passage B doesn't answer the question of which results in better art. (Note how passage B says "[e]ven if" higher quality could be guaranteed. It does not commit to an answer either way.) Since neither author discusses art quality, it cannot be a point at issue between the authors.
  5. E
    encourage fiscal responsibility among Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    The fiscal responsibility of art institutions is not discussed in either passage, so the authors cannot disagree about it.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 33%
  2. B 29%
  3. C 6%
  4. D 29%
  5. E 2%

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