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

Which one of the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: C

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

Question Type

Humanities

Strategy Overview

Consult notes to review the role of each paragraph in the passage, and choose the answer choice that best reflects those roles.

Answer Anticipation

After reading each paragraph, we should take a few seconds to note or reflect on its role. Doing so will help us track the author's argument, find details for questions, and directly answer Argument Structure questions like this one.Looking at our notes on each paragraph, we can see that the first paragraph introduces the problem of the loss of traditional tribal language and the solution of community self-teaching, the second paragraph introduces the need for documenting the elements of an oral language in order to come up with plans for teaching it, the third paragraph introduces the sub-problem of standardizing spelling, the fourth paragraph introduces the sub-problem of deciding between dialects, and the fifth paragraph defends the entire enterprise of writing down primarily oral languages by asserting that oral traditions are in decline.Let’s look for language that echoes our map of the passage in the answer choices.

Answer choices

  1. A
    A problem is identified, Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this answer choice contain an accurate map of the passage, as we understand it?

    No. The problem that this answer choice refers to in the first phrase must be the loss of traditional tribal language, so the fact that the answer choice says that the passage next enumerates a list of obstacles to its solution is inaccurate. Almost immediately after introducing the problem, the passage proposes the solution of community self-teaching. A list of obstacles to implementing the solution is presented afterwards.

    This answer choice gives the elements of the passage in the wrong order.

  2. B
    A problem is identified, Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this answer choice contain an accurate map of the passage, as we understand it?

    No. The first part of the answer choice correctly points out that the passage brings up the problem of loss of traditional tribal language, but the next part of the answer choice, which states that the passage then identifies “solutions to the problem,” is inaccurate. As we can see from P1 S3, the passage only identifies one solution to the problem in the beginning, that of community self-teaching.

    The answer choice goes on to say that the passage enumerates obstacles to implementing the solutions, which is also inaccurate, because the obstacles to only one solution are discussed in paragraphs 2, 3, and 4. It is not until the fifth paragraph that any further potential solutions are discussed, namely, the continuation of oral transmission of language.

    This is not the right answer choice.

  3. C
    A problem is identified, Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem

    (C) Does this answer choice contain an accurate map of the passage, as we understand it?

    Yes. The answer choice begins with the problem (the loss of traditional language), then moves to a solution to the problem (community self-teaching), then proceeds to a method of implementing the solution (writing down and organizing the elements of the language to facilitate teaching), then moves to obstacles to implementing the solution (the difficulty of standardizing in writing a primarily oral language and the necessity of choosing between dialects), then goes to a challenge to the solution and a counter-argument to that challenge (the contention that oral languages can be preserved solely orally, and the empirical observation that languages are not being preserved orally, which shows the near-impossibility of doing so in the future given the encroachment of majority cultural influences).

    As every part of this answer choice is mappable to an element of the passage, and as the elements of the answer choice are presented in the same order as in the passage, this is the right answer.

  4. D
    A problem is identified, Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this answer choice contain an accurate map of the passage, as we understand it?

    No. After saying the passage introduces a problem, the answer choice says the passage enumerates examples of the problem. This is inaccurate. The loss of traditional tribal language is not something that the author thought required examples; it is taken as a given.

    Also, the fifth phrase of the answer choice, “examples of successful implementation are discussed,” is inaccurate. The passage only really brings up one example of successful implementation of community self-teaching: that of the Northern Ute (P2 S1, P4 S3-5).

    Finally, the sixth phrase of the answer choice asserts that the “solution is applied to other similar problems.” That is not the case. The solution is a general one that is presented as applicable to one problem only: the loss of traditional tribal language (P1 S3). There are no “similar” problems brought up by the author.

  5. E
    A problem is identified, Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this answer choice contain an accurate map of the passage, as we understand it?

    No. The first two phrases of the answer choice can be said to be accurate, but the third, that benefits and drawbacks of the proposal are discussed, is not accurate. The author enumerates sub-problems that arise when community self-teaching is deployed as a solution to the problem (P3 S1-2, P4 S1), but the benefits and drawbacks of that solution are not discussed in the passage.

    Because benefits and drawbacks are not discussed, examples of such benefits and drawbacks certainly do not appear in the passage, as the fourth phrase of the answer choice says.

    The fifth phrase of the answer choice is accurate, but the sixth is not. The author supports the proposal that community self-teaching be used to counter the problem of loss of traditional tribal language; they do not reject it.

    This is not the right answer choice.

What this tests

Discussion

No threads yet—be the first to ask a question or share an approach.

View all discussions Start a discussion