PrepTest 107

[lcid:3525] Prep Test 107 LSAT — Reading Comp — S2 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 8-15  .        Tribal communities in North America believe that  . their traditional languages are valuable resources that  . Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Social Science


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Loss of traditional North American tribal languages has been stemmed by community self-teaching.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Majority cultural influences contribute to loss of tribal languages (second sentence)
    • Some communities have opted for community self-teaching to preserve knowledge of languages (third sentence)
    • Author’s attitude: “valuable resources” (first sentence); “must be maintained” (first sentence); “serve as barriers” (second sentence); “overcome” (third sentence); “serious” (third sentence); “prevent it” (third sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Teaching a language demands that the language first be documented and analyzed.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Example: Northern Utes documented grammar and linguistic structures, arranging them in terms of complexity (first-second sentences)
      • Lesson plans were made to present sequence of linguistic information in a useful and appropriate way to the culture (second sentence)
    • Author’s attitude: “must first document” (first sentence); “arranged in sequence” (second sentence); “useful and appropriate” (second sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Sub-problem 1: translating oral language into written form can be difficult.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Spelling words can be a problem in a language that is primarily oral (second sentence)
      • Sometimes there is no written way to convey a sound (third sentence)
    • There can never be a unique written equivalent for every sound in a language (third sentence)
    • Author’s attitude: “certain obstacles” (first sentence); “primarily oral” (second sentence); “lack of acceptable written equivalents” (third sentence); “insistence” (third sentence); “desirable but ultimately frustrating” (third sentence)

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • Sub-problem 2: choosing between dialects can be difficult
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Example: Northern Ute decided not to standardize all spellings and dialects (third sentence)
      • Problem for some who favored Western notions of standardization (fourth sentence)
      • Worked for the community, because elementary school children could write and speak language effectively after a year of instruction (fourth sentence - fifth sentence)
    • Author’s attitude: “many language traditions” (second sentence); “especially rigid” (fourth sentence); “made sense” (fourth sentence); “write and speak it effectively” (fifth sentence)

Paragraph 5

  • Paragraph note
    • Traditional languages can be preserved without writing them down only if community can effectively exclude influence of majority culture.
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Critics of writing down languages: languages can be preserved in oral form; writing them down is misguided and unnecessary (first sentence)
    • Defenders of writing down languages: should be written down because there is a decline in oral traditions (second sentence) and because oral preservation of language is possible only if the whole community is able to exclude the influence of the majority culture that tends to degrade the knowledge of traditional language (second sentence)
    • Author’s attitude: “precisely because” (second sentence); “decline in oral traditions” (second sentence); “made every effort” (second sentence); “eschew aspects of the majority culture” (second sentence)

Main Point: In order to counter the loss of traditional tribal languages, members of some communities have successfully navigated the difficult process of documenting their languages in written form in order to teach them to younger members of the community.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 2 (P1 S2): Statement of general problem (loss of traditional languages)

P1 S3 - Solution to general problem: community self-teaching

P2 S1 - Necessary step to community self-teaching: writing language down

P3 S1 - Sub-problem 1: writing down oral language

P4 S2 - Sub-problem 2: choosing between dialects

P5 S2 - Justification of solution: writing down language necessary unless can exclude all majority cultural influences

Meta-Structure?

Problem/Solution: This passage uses a Problem/Solution Meta-Structure. The author lays out the general problem of the passage: traditional tribal languages are being lost because of the influence of majority culture. The general solution the author proposes is community self-teaching. The author then lays out the necessary preliminary step to teaching language: writing that language down. Next, the author presents two sub-problems that arise when tribe members attempt to write down an oral language, namely, spelling and dialect. The author introduces the example of the Northern Utes, who overcame the issues of writing down an oral language and deciding what to do with multiple dialects and successfully taught schoolchildren to write and speak their language after one year of instruction. Finally, the author counters the arguments of critics who insist that oral languages can be preserved orally by saying that this strategy will work only if the community is successful in excluding all majority cultural influences, a task which the author implies is impossible, especially since oral culture is already declining.

The author’s position on this issue is clear, and, though it takes some consideration to get the general problem-sub problem structure of the passage laid out in your mind, the passage is clearly organized, which makes for an easier experience analyzing the various points the author makes in their argument.

Last Thoughts?

This passage only uses one example of a community that successfully implemented a self-teaching scheme: the Northern Utes. This community is used in a couple of different places as the author traces the various difficulties in writing down and teaching an oral language, but the fact that there is only one example deployed in support of the author’s argument also makes it easier to analyze this passage.

Question prompt

Based on the passage, 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

Strategy Overview

Review your notes to recall the views of the people discussed in the first sentence of the fifth paragraph, then find an answer that must be true according to the passage.

Answer Anticipation

This question stem asks us to infer a belief that those people discussed in P5 S1 would agree with. Often, one’s views are described at length throughout the passage, so reviewing the passage or anticipating what the correct answer will say is not a wise investment of our limited time. In this case, however, the question stem asks about the people who believe that the endeavor of writing down traditional languages is misguided and unnecessary, and these peoples’ views are encapsulated in one sentence. Therefore, we can use our notes and what we highlighted/underlined to anticipate what the correct answer will likely say. So, what do the people in question think?The author says these critics of writing down language believe that merely transmitting languages in their oral form will be sufficient to preserve them, and that writing them down is misguided and unnecessary (P5 S1). Basically, these people are arguing the exact opposite of what the author is arguing, so the right answer choice will be something that the author disagrees with.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Even if left exclusively Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem

    (A) Does this answer choice express a belief that the critics of writing down language would subscribe to, and that the author would disagree with?

    Yes. This answer choice is a paraphrase of the second half of P5 S1, which describes the opinions of the critics of written language. The author, as recounted in P5 S2, disagrees with this view, arguing that it is precisely because the oral forms of language are dying out that it is necessary to try a new approach to preserving them, in this case, writing them down and teaching them.

  2. B
    There has been a Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this answer choice express a belief that the critics of writing down language would subscribe to, and that the author would disagree with?

    No. We are not sure from that one-sentence description of their views what the critics of written language would think about whether communication among tribal members has declined or not. Also, we can be pretty sure the author would agree with the statement in the answer choice because of what they say about a decline in oral traditions generally (P5 S2), and what we’re looking for in the right answer choice is something the author would disagree with.

    So this is not the right answer.

  3. C
    Some oral customs do Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this answer choice express a belief that the critics of writing down language would subscribe to, and that the author would disagree with?

    Not necessarily. Again, we’re not sure what the critics of written language would believe about whether some oral customs don’t need to be preserved orally. We can assume they think that languages should be preserved orally (P5 S1), but it is impossible to say whether they think that should be extended to all oral customs or not.

    Also, it’s difficult to say what the author would think of the view in this answer choice.

    There is too much ambiguity for this to be the right answer.

  4. D
    External influences have little Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this answer choice express a belief that the critics of writing down language would subscribe to, and that the author would disagree with?

    Not necessarily. Because they think that oral languages can be preserved orally only, the critics of written language may well believe that external influences, such as the majority culture mentioned in P1 S2, have little effect on tribal customs, but it is impossible to say this for sure. These critics may believe that external influences have a significant effect on tribal customs, but that oral languages should be preserved orally only and not written down anyway. In that case, they would disagree with the information in the answer choice.

    The author, we would be inclined to believe, would disagree with the answer choice, because the author subscribes to the notion that languages need to be preserved more proactively than has been the case until now (P1 S3).

    So there is a better case to be made for (D) than for (C) or (B), but there is still more ambiguity than we can safely discount, and this is a weaker answer choice than (A).

  5. E
    Tribes must focus on Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this answer choice express a belief that the critics of writing down language would subscribe to, and that the author would disagree with?

    No. This answer choice is something the critics of written language would definitely disagree with, because their position is predicated on keeping oral traditions oral and passing them down orally rather than in writing (P5 S1). For this reason alone, we can discount (E).

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