PrepTest 136

Topic: Social Science

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Problem with historiography/history teaching
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Author/Teacher - Problem - History writing/teaching is boring

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Author’s solution, and a problem with it
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Author’s Solution - Bring stories back to history!
  • Examples
  • Problem - Historians are name-checking stories but not changing their (boring) writing

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Description of legal writing
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Author = Law professor
  • Legal writing - Necessarily linear
  • Author - Last sentence shows some disdain for this

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Author’s problem with legal writing; potential solution
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Author - Problem - Too much legal writing is bad
  • Potential solution - Focus on narrative - Story at heart of each case
  • Legal writing is abstract, causes students to forget story

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Outcome of changes
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • “Subversive” narrative movement might enter curriculum without changing how lawyers write
  • Just acknowledging narrative might fix some things

Main Points:

Passage A - History writing is boring, and it needs to implement stories to fix this, though, despite recognition from some historians, this has yet to happen.

Passage B - Legal writing is too often bad because it loses sight of the narrative at the heart of the case, but a growing awareness of this might lead to some important changes.

Passage A:

• Lines 3-5 - Author identifies herself and her opinion
• Lines 11-14 - That opinion is fully stated, reflecting a problem
• Lines 15-16 - A potential solution is offered
• Lines 27-28 - The solution is shown to not really be implemented

Passage B:

• Line 30 - The Author identifies himself
• Lines 37-38 - Negative connotation/Author’s opinion
• Lines 39-42 - That opinion is expanded
• Lines 42-44 - A potential solution
• Lines 50-51 - A problem with the solution
• Lines 52-59 - The Author’s prediction of potential outcomes

This set of passages is very interesting! They’re actually quite similar. They both are written by teachers in the field they discuss (Line 5; Line 30). They focus on different areas (history; law), but they both address a problem with writing in that field. Those problems are similar - in both cases, the writing is too boring, too logical, too abstract (Lines 5-7; Lines 34-42; among others in both). Both propose similar solutions - the inclusion of stories/narrative in that writing (Lines 15-16; Lines 42-44). And both believe that there’s at least some movement in that direction, though not enough to solve the problem (Lines 16-17; Lines 25-26; Lines 44-45; Lines 52-57). The main difference between the two appears to be that the Author of Passage A doesn’t think the problem is really being solved, with “very few historians” truly adapting narrative (Line 27), while the Author of Passage B believes that even “mere awareness...could perhaps serve as an important corrective” (Lines 58-59), which is slightly more optimistic.

Problem/Solution (Both) - Both passages employ the same Problem/Solution meta-structure. And, in fact, both identify the same problem and solution in their respective fields (see above)! When a passage is centrally concerned with presenting solutions to a problem, the Author’s solution (and any associated opinions on that solution) constitute the main point, which is reflected in our main points written above.

There are two things that are different about these passages than the norm. First, both are written in the first-person, so the viewpoints are a little stronger and more personal than we’re used to seeing. Second, the two are significantly more aligned than we generally see, with each making more or less the same argument about their respective fields. These elements should really define a lot of our anticipations and approach to the questions.