PrepTest 149

[lcid:3693] Prep Test 149 LSAT — Reading Comp — S2 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 13-20  .  . Passage A  .       Comedians are not amused when their jokes are  . stolen, and for that Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage SummaryTopic: Legal Studies

Passage A
Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • A problem facing stand-up comedians is discussed, along with the legal implications
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Problem - Joke stealing is rampant in the stand-up comedy world
    • Legal aspect - Copyright law is most relevant, but not used for two reasons
      • Expensive
      • Hurdles make a successful lawsuit uncertain
    • Copyright law doesn't provide practical protections
Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • A paradox is introduced
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Traditional view - If something isn't legally protected, it won't be created
    • Reality - Comedians keep making up new jokes without legal protections
Paragraph 3
  • Paragraph note
    • The paradox/question is resolved
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Social norms offer protections that the law doesn't
    • The norms have punishments - people won't work with/hire a joke stealer
Passage B
Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • A problem facing chefs is introduced
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Problem - Recipes aren't protected by patents or copyrights, and while they're protected by trade secret laws, that's rarely done
    • Solution - social norms
Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • A description of the social norms at play, and their legal analogues
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Patents - Chefs don't use the recipe of another chef, even if it's publicly available
    • Contract - Chefs don't pass on secret information that a creator reveals to them
    • Copyright - Credit the chefs who created a recipe
Main Point:
Passage A - Copyright law doesn't protect jokes, but social norms provide similar protections and allow comedians to create and protect their work.

Passage B - Social norms provide chefs with protections similar to patents, contracts, and copyright.

Key Lines:

Passage A:
Lines 13-15 - Sum up problem faced by comedians
Lines 20-23 - Question/paradox presented
Lines 24-26 - The answer/resolution to the paradox is stated

Passage B:
Lines 40-44 - Sum up problem faced by chefs
Lines 46-49 - Solution to this problem is presented, along with structure for rest of passage
Paragraph 2 - A very dense paragraph that goes into the solutions developed for the chefs' problem

Meta-Structure - Relationship Between Passages:
This is an interesting set of Comparative Passages that falls into a repeated but less frequent pattern—they discuss analogous situations. Here, the legal situation for comedians is analogous to that of chefs, in that both lack many formal legal protections. And in both cases, social norms are noted as providing the protections that the law fails to provide.

Each passage presents a bit of a Problem/Solution structure, in that they highlight a lack of legal protections and how the industry has adapted to provide protections. And the first passage presents a Paradox/Question—why do comedians keep making jokes if they're not protected?

Last Thoughts:
This should be an interesting set of questions since the similarities between the passages largely come down to analogies and legal terms!

Question prompt

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

Credited answer: E

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

Question Type

Legal

Answer choices

  1. A
    Intellectual property violations are Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. The two passages never refer to each other or to the other profession, so this comparison is unwarranted.
  2. B
    A more elaborate system Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 26-28; Lines 50-64) While there may be more detail provided in Passage B about the system of norms that developed in the chef world, the two industries are never directly compared, and the language surrounding the comedian norms is pretty expansive (""Taken as a whole . . . ""). As such, this answer features an unwarranted comparison.
  3. C
    Chefs enjoy more significant Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 3-5; Lines 44-45) Passage A notes that copyright law does protect jokes, while Passage B states that patent and copyright law don't protect recipes while trade secrecy laws ""potentially"" do. If anything, that suggests the law applies more to jokes than recipes!
  4. D
    Most comedians and chefs Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    Incorrect. Neither passage talks about how the professionals being discussed feel about intellectual property laws—just how the Authors do—so this answer is out of scope.
  5. E
    Comedians and chefs both Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem
    Correct. Question Type:
    Must Be True

    Strategy Overview:
    Find an answer that's supported by either or both passage, using our overall understanding as a first filter and then our notations/the passage itself as our final decider

    Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
    Ouch. We don't even know what passage this answer will come from! The stem asks us to find something supported by the information in the passages—not something that's supported by both passages.

    As such, we're even more in the dark than normal. We'll have to head straight to the answers, filter out those that don't really line up with what we understand of the passages, and then use our notations and the passages themselves to make a final call.

    Answer Explanation:
    (Lines 34-38; Lines 50-64) Passage A and Passage B both end with a list of benefits that chefs/comedians obtain from the social norms of their professions. Comedians can assert ownership and have incentives to create new material, while chefs can get protections similar to copyright, patent, and contract law by doing so.

    Key Takeaway:
    The correct answer here ended up relying on information from both passages, but that didn't need to be the case! The correct answer could have been supported by just one of the two passages. If the question doesn't state a specific passage or note that the correct answer needs to show up in both/neither, then either could individually provide the information supporting the correct answer.

What this tests

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