PrepTest 116

[lcid:3560] Prep Test 116 LSAT — Reading Comp — S1 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 6-13  .        In many bilingual communities of Puerto Rican  . Americans living in the mainland United States,  . Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Phenomenon (code-switching in Puerto Rican communities) introduced; explanations previewed (situational and rhetorical factors)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Definition of “code-switching”:
      • Bilingual people switching between both languages
    • Author’s explanation:
      • Some instances of code-switching do not have an explanation, but a vast majority are due to situation/rhetorical factors
    • Author’s attitude: “smoothly and frequently” (lines 4-5); “some cases that cannot currently be explained” (lines 7-8); “vast majority” (line 8); “subtle factors” (line 9); “explain” (line 10)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Explanation: Situational factors listed, supported with studies/examples
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Definition of “domain”: social contexts
    • List of three conversational factors that influence code-switching:
      • Setting, participants, topic
    • Definition of “congruent” factors and “conversational situation”:
      • When setting, participants, and topic go together naturally
      • A set of three “congruent” factors is a “conversational situation”
    • Researchers’ findings:
      • Researchers defined five domains (family, friendship, religion, education, and employment)
      • Provided two of three factors in each domain, sometimes congruent and others not, to see what effect the third factor had on the language used
      • Examples/Results:
        • If two congruent factors (such as parent/child as participants and “how to be a good child” as topic), students easily provided the third congruent factor and agreed on the language they would speak
        • If two incongruent factors (such as priest/parishioner as participants and beach as setting), students would disagree on the third factor and on which language they would speak

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Explanation: Rhetorical factors can also influence
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author’s explanation:
      • Situational factors don’t account for all code-switching; other language used for rhetorical effect
      • Sometimes, the speaker isn’t aware of the switch
    • Example of study on rhetorical factors
      • Puerto Rican Americans said they spoke English at home, but unwittingly used Spanish to communicate certain attitudes or to supply emphasis
    • Author’s attitude: “do not account for all code-switching”

Main Point: While some cases of code-switching by Puerto Rican Americans can’t currently be explained, the vast majority of cases are explained by situational and rhetorical factors.

Key Lines?

Lines 1-5 - Phenomenon defined

Lines 7-10 - Author’s explanation

Lines 32-36 - Key support on situational factors

Lines 51-54 - Key support on rhetorical factors

Meta-Structure?

Phenomenon/Explanation: We love it when the passage explicitly states which Meta-Structure it falls into! Line 5 refers to a “practice,” which is just another word for a phenomenon. Line 10 tells us that we’re going to be presented with explanations for it. The rest of the passage then provides those explanations. When the passage falls into a Phenomenon/Explanation Meta-Structure, the author’s explanation for the phenomenon (or their opinion on a key explanation) constitutes the main point. Here, since the author says that the “vast majority” of examples of the phenomenon can be explained by “situational [and] rhetorical” factors, that’s the main point, as reflected in our summary of it above.

Lists: Paragraph 2 goes into multiple lists of situation factors that are relevant in the explanation of code-switching. Those factors are themselves broken into two categories. Conversational factors include “setting, participants, and topic” (Line 16). The five domains a conversation can take place in include “family, friendship, religion, education, and employment” (Lines 23-24). Since these two lists of factors are central to the studies and results presented in the rest of the paragraph, it’s likely that they’ll be relevant to the questions.

Last Thoughts?

The last sentence in Paragraph 1 does a lot of work. Not only does it lay out the phenomenon that the author is trying to explain, but it also creates two broad “categories” of explanation that define the makeup of the rest of the passage! That makes it a lot easier to contextualize Paragraphs 2 and 3, as Paragraph 2 focuses on situational factors/explanations, while Paragraph 3 focuses on rhetorical ones. This should help immensely as we work through the questions, as finding specific information should be relatively straightforward based on this breakdown.

Question prompt

It can be inferred Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

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

Question Type

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Remind ourselves of the main point of the passage, then head to the answers, focusing on those that line up with the main point and then using our notes/the passage to find the correct answer

Answer Anticipation

This question stem provides no indication as to the topic of the correct answer or where it’ll show up in the passage. As such, we’ll need to rely on our big-picture understanding of the passage to answer this question. We should start by reminding ourselves of the main point (either by reviewing what we said after reading the passage or by rereading our answer to the main point question). From there, we can head to the answers, deferring on those that don’t line up with the main point. For those that do, we’ll use our notes and the passage to see if it’s correct.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Research revealing that speakers Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Do you recall the author arguing that the study involving family members who are unaware of code-switching casts doubt on the study involving high schoolers?

    Almost certainly not. The author’s main point is that the vast majority of code-switching instances are explained by situational or rhetorical factors. The research involving family members who are unaware of code-switching suggests that rhetorical factors sometimes explain code-switching. The study involving high schoolers suggests that situational factors often explain code-switching. The author said that these situations explain separate cases. So, the research on rhetorical factors doesn’t cast doubt on the research on situational factors — it supplements it.

  2. B
    Relevant research conducted prior Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Do you recall the author arguing that researchers had different expectations about the high schoolers’ responses before that study was conducted?

    Probably not. Assuming that researchers had different expectations before the study would suggest that this passage utilized an Old Approach/New Approach Meta-Structure. But, this passage did not use such a Meta-Structure. Indeed, the passage never describes any previously held beliefs or theories. Therefore, we can safely eliminate this choices.

  3. C
    Research conducted prior to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Do you recall the author arguing that research conducted before the study involving the family from the third paragraph was thought to explain the vast majority of code-switching?

    This one is a little tricky, since many test-takers remember the author’s suggestion that the research on the family explains some cases of code-switching that situational factors cannot (Lines 44-46). It’s true that the study involving the high schoolers from the second paragraph explains many cases of code-switching, while the study involving the family explains other cases. However, there’s no indication of the order in which the two studies mentioned in the passage were run, so we can’t support this answer about what was believed “prior” to research on the family! There’s also no indication that the high school student study was seen as speaking to “all except the most unusual” cases.

  4. D
    Research suggests that people Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Do you recall the author suggesting that people are generally unaware of the situational factors that might influence their code-switching?


    Almost certainly not, as the study involving the high schoolers suggests the precise opposite point. When discussing the study involving the high schoolers’ understanding of situational factors that influence code-switching, the author shows that for congruent situations, there was a lot of agreement on what language/mix of languages would be used. This suggests that many people are aware of the situational factors that influence their language choice.

  5. E
    Research suggests that the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem

    (E) Do you recall the author suggesting that the family in the study from the third paragraph did not code-switch except for the occasional rhetorical effect?

    Possibly. This answer choice is also appealingly limited in scope — it’s only about the family from the study, and it doesn’t make any broad or sweeping generalizations (unlike (A), (C), and (D)). For this reason, we can view this as the safest option — especially if we eliminated the previous answer choices.

    Upon review of the study in the third paragraph, we’ll see that this answer choice is supported. In the third paragraph, the author says that the Puerto Rican family “believed they only used English at home,” but their conversations occasionally contained some Spanish even though the situational factors hadn’t changed. This family then cited rhetorical factors, like expressing attitudes like intimacy or humor, as a reason for their occasional use of Spanish. Therefore, this answer can be inferred from the passage.

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