PrepTest 112

[lcid:3545] Prep Test 112 LSAT — Reading Comp — S2 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 7-14  .        In Intellectual Culture in Elizabethan and  . Jacobean England , J.W. Binns asserts that the drama Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Humanities


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Binns's view (important Latin Renaissance texts are underappreciated because of academic specialization)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Binns's view:
      • People who learn Latin tend to leave alone texts on "theology and science, law and medicine," even though those writings "revolutionized Western thought" (fifth sentence)
    • Comparisons, according to Binns:
      • Latin was used by English intellectuals (especially for works of law, theology, and science) more than English during the Renaissance (second sentence)
      • Language specialists focus on poems and orations more than works of theology, science, law, and medicine (fifth sentence)
      • Unlike language specialists, specialists in theology, science, law, and medicine do not have philological (linguistic) training (fifth sentence)
      • Historians can find more guidance when reading Milton's Latin poetry than they can when reading the more challenging scientific works by Newton (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • More on Binns's view (intellectual historians underestimate the importance of Latin on Renaissance England)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Binns's view:
      • "Intellectual historians" love to dig into "historical, cosmological, and theological" topics, but they do so with texts that were either written in or translated into English (first sentence)
      • This means that they ignore important context for these English writers, including that English writers were taught Latin in school and grew up in a world that was dominated by Latin (second through last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's view (limitations are understandable but distort our understanding of Renaissance England)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • This problem is understandable because no one is trained with all the skills that you would need to completely understand some Renaissance texts (first and second sentence)
      • Still, this problem keeps us from truly understanding some important texts (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "understandable" (first sentence), "No modern classicist" (second sentence), "difficult" (second sentence), "few students" (second sentence), "inability to cross boundaries" (last sentence), "each presents a distorted reading" (last sentence)

Main Point: Because so few academics are trained to read Renaissance Latin, some important texts from the English Renaissance have not been thoroughly studied.

Meta-Structure?

Problem/Solution: This passage uses a Problem/Solution Meta-Structure.* In such passages, the author will articulate a problem and then (usually) will discuss potential solutions.

In this specific passage, the first paragraph lays out the problem as it has been stated by one J.W. Binns. According to Binns, "because many academic specializations do not overlap, many texts central to an interpretation of early modern English culture have gone unexamined" (P1, S3). The rest of the first paragraph and the entirety of the second describes how people who can read Latin only read the literary stuff (like poems and stories) and the people who have the specialized knowledge to understand the more technical stuff (like science, medicine, theology, and law) haven't been trained to read Latin.

Now that we have identified the problem, we need to ask ourselves, does the author provide a solution? The answer is simply no. The author never identifies what could be done to fix this problem, but that's okay! In a Problem/Solution Meta-structure, the author is not obligated to fix the problem that the passage introduces. In this specific case, the author is content to simply tell us that the issue at hand is a problem.

Generally, the main point in a Problem/Solution passage will be either the solution the author endorses or proffers. However, since we know that our author does not tell us about any potential solutions, our main point will be our author's opinion on the problem. In the last paragraph, the passage gives us a sentence that summarizes just that. It says, "[T]he result of each side's inability to cross boundaries has been that each presents a distorted reading of the intellectual culture of Renaissance England" (P3, S2). Thus, our main point will be something like, "Because so few academics are trained to read Renaissance Latin, some important texts from the English Renaissance have not been thoroughly studied."

*This passage is almost a Reporting a Viewpoint passage but the author presents their view in the third paragraph. Still, if you treated this passage like a Reporting a Viewpoint passage, you'd come out with a solid grasp of the main point and organization. You could also think of this as a Phenomenon/Explanation passage (phenomenon: many English Renaissance texts go unexamined; explanation: few scholars can appreciate these texts in their original Latin)

Last Thoughts?

Whenever a RC passage discusses an author at length (as this passage does with Binns), it's important to analyze the relationship between this writer and the author of the passage. Does the author of the passage agree? Do they disagree? In this text, there's nothing explicit to tell us how our author feels about Binns, so we have to rely on inferring that attitude from the tone of the passage. 

To that end, we should note that the first two paragraphs are framed as Binn's argument. Sentences often say "Binn asserts" or "according to Bin." Nowhere in these two paragraphs is it apparent that the author has shifted into their own voice and perspective. Yet, in the third paragraph, where there is no "Binn says," it seems that we have shifted to the author's voice. Other than conceding that the limitations Binns observes are "understandable," the argument remains the same. Therefore, we can infer that the author implicitly agrees with Binn's thoughts. Understanding that relationships will almost certainly help us answer some of the questions about this passage.

Question prompt

The information in 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

Refer to notes or what you highlighted/underline to locate where the passage discusses late–Renaissance scientific works written in Latin, and refer to the relevant part of the passage as needed to find that answer choice that must be true

Answer Anticipation

For questions that ask us to infer, from a few details in the passage, an answer choice that must be true, quickly finding and reviewing those details is critical. That is why we make brief notes describing the role of each paragraph and highlight or underline definitions and the minor Meta-Structures — doing so helps us find the salient information efficiently and reliably. Once we review that part of the passage, we can look through the answer choices to see which one is best supported by what we reviewed. Since the question stem asks us about something that the passage suggests, the correct answer probably won't restate something from the passage. Instead, the question will likely require us to draw a connection between a few different pieces of information.Here, the question asks about late–Renaissance scientific works written in Latin. Where did those show up in the passage? Well, all over the passage! These works are one of the types of works that scholars ignore, so they're discussed in all three paragraphs.Rather than review the passage, we’ll need to rely on our big-picture understanding of the passage to answer these questions. 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). From there, we can head to the answer choices. If something in an answer choice doesn't seem familiar and isn’t reflected in our notes on each paragraph, we shouldn’t check the passage to see if it was mentioned. Instead, we’ll table it and move on to the next answer choice. If something seems inconsistent with the main point, we can eliminate it. If something seems familiar, consistent with the main point, or reflected in our notes, we’ll use our notes/highlights/underlines to find the part of the passage that proves the answer choice must be true. If we can find that confirmation, we’ll select that answer choice and move on.

Answer choices

  1. A
    These works are easier Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our paragraph notes?

    Nope. The main point lumps "theology and science" together in the category of works that scholars overlook because they require specialized knowledge to understand. Neither our main point nor our notes suggest that one is more challenging to analyze than the other. For this reason, we can eliminate — or at least table — (A) and move on to the next answer choice.

    Besides, we wouldn't find supporting text for (A) if we re-read the entire passage. The author never says or implies that scientific works are easier to understand than theological works. In fact, the author acknowledges that scientific works from this era are "difficult" (P3, S1).

  2. B
    These works have seldom Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our paragraph notes?

    Not quite. Neither our main point nor our notes reference "illuminating commentaries." For that reason, we can eliminate — or at least table — (B) without reviewing the passage and move on to the remaining answer choices.

    After all, we wouldn't find support for (B) if we re-read the entire passage. The passage says that at least some of these texts are "translated into English" (P2, S1), but we don't know how often. Moreover, the author says that intellectual historians "too often" rely on texts translated or written in English when studying Renaissance works written in Latin (P2, S1). So, the author almost certainly wouldn't call such English-written commentaries "illuminating."

  3. C
    These works are difficult Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem

    (C) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our paragraph notes?

    Yes! This is consistent with the main point. Our main point asserts that because so few academics are trained to read Renaissance Latin, some important texts from the English Renaissance have not been thoroughly studied. We know these overlooked texts include scientific works written in Latin. So, it's entirely plausible that modern scholars have trouble analyzing both the concepts in these works and the language in which they're written. Based on this answer choice's consistency with the main point alone, we can select (C) and advance to the following question.

    If we wanted to be cautious, we could review the passage to confirm that (C) is supported. In the first paragraph, Binns argues that these Latin-language specialists leave scientific works to "specialists" who lack philological training (P1, S5). This suggests that Latin-language specialists can't understand the concepts, while the science-specialists can't understand the Latin. The author reiterates this point in the third paragraph, too (P3, S2). Therefore, we can select (C) confidently.

  4. D
    These works constituted the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our paragraph notes?

    No. Neither our main point nor notes tell us what works constituted the "core" of an English university education at the time. Our second note says that Latin works likely influenced this education, but that doesn't mean that scientific works written in Latin were the "core" of such an education. That's enough to table — if not outright eliminate — (D).

    If we had to review the passage to eliminate (D), the only reference to universities in the passage reveals that students read "ancient Latin and Greek texts" (P2, S4). But nothing indicates students were reading works from the Renaissance (which would have been written by contemporary authors). So, (D) is unsupported.

  5. E
    These works were written Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Is this consistent with the main point or reflected in our paragraph notes?

    No. Neither our main point nor our notes suggest that most scientific works written in Latin were produced Continental writers. Moreover, the note for the second paragraph suggests that these Latin-written works reached English intellectuals without the need of an English translation.

    We can eliminate this without reviewing the passage, but if we did, we'd see that it tells us that Latin works (that were not translated into English) "became the bases of classic English works of literature and scholarship" (P2, S4). So, the passage contradicts this answer choice.

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