PrepTest 101

[lcid:3500] Prep Test 101 LSAT — Reading Comp — S1 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 7-13  .        In April 1990 representatives of the Pico Korea  . Union of electronics workers in Buchon City, Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Sciences


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Background on Pico Korea Union (championed by Korean Americans, who were affected by PKU's dispute)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • The Pico Korea Union's dispute was supported by an extraordinary collection of Korean-American groups and had a profound effect on the Korean-American community (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "championed" (last sentence); "deeply affected" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • How the PKU’s dispute affected KA community (increased young KAs' interest in politics/culture, expanded KA’s political base)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • List of ways the Pico Korea Union's dispute affected the Korean-American community, according to the author:
      • Unified a diverse Korean-American community (first sentence)
      • Increased the political awareness of second-generation Korean Americans (second sentence)
      • Promoted second-generation Korean American's interest in their cultural identity (third and fourth sentences)
      • Expanded the political base of the Korean-American community to include recent working-class immigrants, who gave the community a more global perspective on working conditions (fifth and sixth sentences)
      • Created new alliances between the Korean-American community and progressive labor and social justice groups (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "rallying focus for a diverse community often divided" (first sentence); "Most notably" (second sentence); "mobilized" (second sentence); "can help to globalize the perspective" (sixth sentence); "can help to establish international ties on a more personal level" (sixth sentence); "especially warm" (sixth sentence); "as evidenced" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Why PKU dispute affected KA community (strong human component of PKU's demands)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Cause-and-effect relationship, according to the author:
      • The strong human component and a lack of an ideological bent to the Pico Korea Union's demands caused members of the Korean-American community to put aside their differences and focus on the Union's demands for social justice and workers' rights (first and second sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "strong human component" (second sentence); "larger concerns" (second sentence); "unencumbered" (third sentence); "economic exploitation" (last sentence); "underscored the common interests" (last sentence)

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • Lesson of PKU's dispute (joining labor/social struggle in original country can unify immigrant community)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • The Pico Korea Union's visit shows that the most effective way to unify and empower an immigrant community may be joining a fight for economic and social justice in their country of origin (first through last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "offers an important lesson" (first sentence); "need more than just knowledge" (second sentence); "perhaps the most effective means" (last sentence); "may be" (last sentence)

Main Point: The Pico Korea Union's dispute over unpaid wages mobilized and unified the diverse Korean-American community against the economic exploitation of these workers and offers an important lesson on how to empower immigrant communities.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 2 (P1, S2) - Author summarizes how PKU affected KA community

P4, S3 - Author summarizes lesson to take away from PKU's dispute

Meta-Structure?

Importance of Subject: This passage utilizes the Importance of Subject Meta-Structure. In this passage, the author describes why the Pico Korea Union's dispute over unpaid wages and eventual visit to the U.S. was historically significant, particularly in how it impacted the Korean-American community.

When a passage utilizes an Importance of Subject Meta-Structure, the main point is generally the author's opinions on why the subject is important. The author's has two takes on why the dispute was important, which the author describes at length in the second and fourth paragraphs. The author uses the second paragraph to enumerate the ways the Pico Korea Union's dispute and eventual visit to the U.S. mobilized and unified the Korean-American community. The author uses the fourth paragraph to describe what lessons we should take away from the Union's dispute. We summarized both of these points in our anticipated main point.

List: The most prominent minor Meta-Structure is the list of all the ways the Pico Korea Union's dispute and eventual visit to the U.S. affected the Korean-American community. We've listed each effect in the Passage Summary above. Expect this list to figure into at least one of the questions.

Last Thoughts?

This question has a balanced mixed of author’s attitude and minor Meta-Structures. Therefore, we should expect a balanced mix of Major Point, Minor Point, Argument Structure, and Tone questions.

Question prompt

It can be inferred 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

Social Science

Strategy Overview

Review the main point, and use notes or highlighted/underlined text in the passage to recall the author’s attitude, and find the answer that best reflects your understanding of the main point/author's attitude

Answer Anticipation

This question asks us about the author's view, but doesn't provide much insight into the topic of the correct answer or where the supporting information might show up in the passage. After all, the question asks about the author's view on "ethnic communities of immigrant derivation," a topic discussed throughout the passage. This means the correct answer is likely to relate back to the author's main point. 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). We can also review any notes about the author's attitude or any text we highlighted because it expresses the author's opinion. After doing that, we can head to the answer choices, tabling those that don't line up with the main point. For those answer choices that conform to the author’s main point, we'll use our notes and the passage to see if it's correct.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Such communities can derive Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem

    (A) Is this consistent with the author's main point or what we reviewed about the author's attitude?

    Absolutely. The author's main point is, "The Pico Korea Union's dispute over unpaid wages mobilized and unified the diverse Korean-American community against the economic exploitation of these workers and offers an important lesson on how to empower immigrant communities." Our note for the fourth paragraph is, "Lesson of PKU's dispute (joining labor/social struggle in original country can unify immigrant community)." Connecting these two, we can infer that the author thinks immigrant communities can benefit from joining the labor and social struggles of people from their country of origin. To join such struggles, these immigrant communities would need to maintain some ties with their country of origin.

    Plus, this answer choice has the soft, easy-to-support language ("can") we like on a question asking us to make an inference. This language, plus the support we can find with just the main point and our notes, allows us to select (A) without even reviewing the passage. If, however, you'd like to double-check the passage to confirm that (A) is supported, the fourth paragraph provides that support. There, the author says that, "perhaps the most effective means of empowerment for many ethnic communities of immigrant derivation may be an identification with and participation in current struggles for economic and social justice in their countries of origin" (P4, S3). Since "empowerment" is a benefit and "identif[ying] with and participat[ing] in current struggles for economic and social justice in their countries of origin" requires members of the immigrant community to maintain ties with the country of origin, (A) is well supported. We can select (A) and advance straight to the next question.

  2. B
    Such communities should focus Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Is this consistent with the author's main point or what we reviewed about the author's attitude?

    Nope. This runs counter to our note for the fourth paragraph. That note says, "Lesson of PKU's dispute (joining labor/social struggle in original country can unify immigrant community)." The author recommends joining the fight rather than studying the history and culture. And if we reviewed the author's tonal words in the fourth paragraph, we'd see that the author says joining the fight is "perhaps the most effective means" of empowering immigrant communities and that these communities "need more than just a knowledge of history and culture as artifacts of the past" (P4, S2-3). Therefore, the author would probably disagree with (B).

  3. C
    Such communities can most Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Is this consistent with the author's main point or what we reviewed about the author's attitude?

    No. Neither our main point nor our notes suggest the author believes that young people will be most successfully mobilized once immigrant communities address the problems of young people of "all backgrounds." In fact, this runs counter to the author's main point, which suggests that immigrant communities should focus on the problems of those people in their original country. On top of that, this answer choice has strong, SCOTUS-y language with "most successfully," which is hard to support on an inference question. All of these issues give us good reason to eliminate (C).

  4. D
    The more privileged sectors Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Is this consistent with the author's main point or what we reviewed about the author's attitude?

    Nope. Neither our main point nor our notes suggest the author believes that more privileged members of an immigrant community are more likely to maintain ties to their cultural roots. This contradicts the author's recommendation in the last paragraph, where they suggest that "perhaps the most effective means" of maintaining these ties is by joining the fight for economic and social justice with those people in their original country. Plus, this answer choice has strong, SCOTUS-y language ("most likely") that makes this hard to support. All of these issues give us good reason to eliminate (D).

  5. E
    The politicization of such Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Is this consistent with the author's main point or what we reviewed about the author's attitude?

    Nope. In fact, if we recall the list of the ways the Korean-American community changed (which was tested on the previous question), we would remember that the Korean-American community became more politicized (P2, S2) and established alliances with activist groups from the larger society (P2, S7). Therefore, the author would probably disagree with (E).

What this tests

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