LSAT 136, Section 3, RC Passage 2, Writing

RC Passage 2 Explanation (Comparative)

PASSAGE TEXT: Readers, like writers, need to search for answers. Part of the joy of …

Paragraph Summaries

Passage A

1. Academic historians write dry, formulaic books that turn history into abstract debate and fail to engage students emotionally.
2. Some historians claim to be rediscovering narrative, but this is mostly cosmetic. They use the language of storytelling without actually telling moving or engaging stories.

Passage B

1. Lawyers often write badly because they imitate existing legal writing. Narrative might help because real cases involve human stories, but legal analysis usually strips those stories away.
2. The narrative movement in law may end up changing only the rhetoric, not actual legal writing. Still, even recognizing the value of narrative could help.

Analysis

Both authors are insiders criticizing their own fields. Passage A’s author says “when I started teaching” and “we still encounter,” and Passage B’s author says “we who teach the law.” This matters for question 8, which asks about their relationship to the professions they discuss. Both are active practitioners.

The two passages share a diagnosis but differ in tone and in how far they take it.

Passage A is contemptuous. The turn toward narrative is a fad, predictably superficial, producing nothing but rebranded abstractions. The second paragraph of Passage A isn’t really hopeful. It’s an extension of the criticism, using the narrative fad as further evidence of the problem.

Passage B is more measured. The author doubts the narrative movement will produce real change, but closes with a genuine concession: even mere awareness could matter. Passage A never grants anything like this.

The shared target is abstraction. History becomes historiography for other historians. Law becomes linear legal analysis for other lawyers. In both fields, the writing stops reaching real human experience.