LSAT 130 | Section 2 | Reading Comprehension: Q5

RC Question 5 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The passage as a whole functions primarily as

DISCUSSION: The passage first discusses obstacles to the study of ancient crafts, then describes how technology and changes in attitudes have overcome those challenges and led to knowledge.

___________

1. There wasn’t any controversy mentioned in the passage. The only possible controversy is between past and present archaeologists. But that’s not controversy, because now everyone disagrees with past archaeologists who threw stuff away.
2. The author doesn’t mention what archaeologists should do in the future. They already seem to approve of present archaeologists.
3. CORRECT. This matches well. The first paragraph describes the difficulties. The second and third paragraphs discuss methods used to overcome them.
4. This didn’t happen.
   Example of situation: Archaeologists believe they should preserve artifacts out of sunlight so they will last. But we should display artifacts in museums so that people see the importance of archaeology.
5. Which hypotheses, exactly, did the author describe?
   Example of situation: Researchers have used the innovative technique of recreating ancient production methods. Their hypotheses were:
   1. Recreation would let them get an intuitive feel for the materials
   2. They would better understand what ancient texts were talking about
   3. They would better recognize what objects might be useful for cloth production, and so they could better identify these objects on archaeological digs
   4. They could test assumptions about work methods by seeing whether production could actually be done according to current theories.