PrepTest 125

[lcid:3596] Prep Test 125 LSAT — Reading Comp — S1 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 6-12 Passage A  .        Drilling fluids, including the various mixtures  . known as drilling muds, play essential roles Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Science


Passage A

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Purposes of drilling muds
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • List of many purposes

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Ingredients of drilling muds
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Bentonite + others
    • Largest ingredient - Barite

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Formulas and problem
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Companies have proprietary formulas
    • Problem - Studying impact since formulas are hidden, have different names for ingredients...

Passage B

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Background and concern
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Background on drilling mud
    • Discharge of drilling mud - Main environmental concern
    • Regulated and monitored

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • One type of mud - WBM - Safer
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Water-Based Mud (WBM) - Safer, shallow drills, dumped

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Another type of mud - OBM - Compared to WBM - Regulations
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Oil-Based Mud (OBM) - Deeper wells, more dangerous
    • Compared to WBM - Don’t disperse as readily, more oil, more barite
    • Barite can hurt sea creatures
    • Regulations on dumping

Main Points:

Passage A - Drilling muds have many purposes, are made up of certain chemicals, and have different formulas for different companies, which has presented problems in studying their effects.

Passage B - The release of WBMs is less harmful to the environment than OBMs, which is reflected in the stricter regulations facing the latter.

Key Lines?

Passage A:

  • Lines 2-3 - Introduce the purpose of Paragraph 1
  • Lines 14-15 - Main ingredient
  • Lines 23-26 - A problem is noted

Passage B:

  • Lines 33-35 - A problem
  • Lines 48-54 - Differences

Meta-Structure? Relationship Between Passages?

This is a weird set of passages in that they’re both largely informative - they don’t really have an argument or a point of view. Rather, we get information about drilling muds in both. There’s some overlap - they both talk about the compositions of drilling muds - but also a lot of information that’s unique to one passage - e.g., Passage A’s discussion of the purpose of drilling muds. Since these passages are largely devoid of viewpoints, we should expect the questions to bring up the details, which means that knowing what information is present in each passage is going to be important.

Problem/Solution - Both passages bring up environmental concerns from the dumping of drilling muds. Passage A talks about the “effects of drilling waste discharges” since they have “sometimes toxic” ingredients (Lines 24-26), and Passage B talks about how OBMs have “a greater potential for negative environmental impact” (Lines 52-53). Neither offers a solution other than regulating these products - these passages aren’t about a solution to it but rather just presenting the information about the drilling muds and the problems they post.

Lists (List of Differences)- Both passages include a list. Passage A lists a bunch of purposes of drilling muds in Paragraph 1; Passage B lists differences between OBMs and WBMs in Paragraph 3.

Last Thoughts?

These passages are...boring, for lack of a better word. So it’d be easy to gloss over the information. And there’s also no reason to try to remember all of the key terms, as they’re not things that are familiar to you (bentonite, barite, polymers, etc…). Instead, know what type of information shows up where in each paragraph, and move to the questions as soon as possible so you can spend more time referring back to those details.

Question prompt

A primary purpose of Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: B

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

Question Type

Science

Strategy Overview

Review our discussion of the overlap between the two passages, their main points, and any shared Meta-Structures, and then find an answer reflecting a shared point

Answer Anticipation

In general, these primary purpose questions have answers that reflect a combination of the main point and defining Meta-Structure of a given passage. Here, however, there really wasn’t a main point as we’re used to seeing - both passages were largely informative, presenting factual information. As such, we should expect the correct answer here to have a main verb that’s more neutral or academic - “describe” or “present” rather than “argue” or “persuade.”With that noted, what topics did each passage talk about? Passage A discussed the purposes, composition, and problems with studying drilling muds. Passage B discussed a concern of drilling muds, the composition of two types, and why one of them is more tightly regulated than the other.The overlap? The discussion of their composition, and elements related to the problems in both - the environmental concerns/impact of them. Let’s look for answers that bring up either of those shared elements.

Answer choices

  1. A
    provide causal explanations for Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) (Lines 25-26; Lines 54-56) Passage A notes that drilling muds sometimes have toxic ingredients - that can hardly be said to present a causal explanation, let alone have it serve as a primary purpose. Passage B doesn’t add much more, saying barite and mineral oil might have toxic effects. Even if we concede that these are causal explanations for environmental pollution, they’re small parts of the passages - not primary purposes.

  2. B
    describe the general composition Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem

    (B) (Lines 1-19; Lines 38-60) Passage A discusses what drilling muds are used for, speaking to its properties. It also discusses its composition in Paragraph 2 (and a bit in Paragraph 3). Passage B spends most of Paragraphs 2 and 3 comparing the composition of two types of drilling muds, along with the properties associated with the ingredients. This answer captures the majority of each passage, and its main verb is very academic/neutral, so it’s correct.

  3. C
    point out possible environmental Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) (Lines 25-26; Lines 52-56) Passage A mentions that some ingredients of drilling muds are toxic, but it doesn’t list what the impact of these toxic ingredients is. Passage B says that one ingredient might impact scallops, and others might have toxic effects, but, again, that’s hardly a list of environmental impacts. Certainly not a comprehensive enough list to consider it a primary purpose of the passage.

  4. D
    explain why oil–well drilling Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) (Lines 1-11) Passage A spends its first paragraph explaining all of the reasons that drilling muds are “essential” in oil-well drilling, so this answer does capture a primary purpose of that passage. However, Passage B doesn’t discuss why they’re necessarily, so this answer is only half right - which makes it completely wrong!

  5. E
    identify difficulties inherent in Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) (Lines 23-30) Passage A discusses the varied, proprietary, and secretive nature of drilling mud formulas, implying a difficulty in regulating them. Passage B, however, just talks about the regulations - it doesn’t present any difficulties in enacting those regulations.

What this tests

Discussion

View all discussions Start a discussion