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LSAT Preptest 150 Explanations
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Section I Reading Comprehension
Section II Logical Reasoning
Section III Logical Reasoning
Section IV (Exp) Reading Comprehension
Passage 1, Wynton Marsalis
Passage 2, Psychology and Inferential Thoughts
Passage 3, Dowsing
Passage 4, Independent Research in Court
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Preptest 150 Data
Preptest 150 is a new format LSAT Preptest with no logic games section. Its sections come from Preptest 84 (Sections 1, 2 and 3) and Preptest 81 (Section 4). These preptests were administered in June 2018 and June 2017 originally. Section IV is the experimental section, which does not count towards your score. It is included in order to let you simulate a four question practice test – the questions themselves are no different in style than the scored sections.
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For the section 1 RC, question 1 , how would you go about determining which is right between C and D. All the other answers were pretty clearly wrong to me, but C and D both seem like they accurately describe information in the passage, and I struggle a lot with questions like this, where I am deciding not just which one is accurate, but which is the more important point of the passage. It seems very subjective to me whether the part of the passage that says past predictions that did not incorporate data the effect of sulfates overestimated the amount of warming is an important enough part of the passage to be a part of the main point.
But I know I am probably wrong about this, and the right answer probably clearly the correct answer, and is not a judgement call. So I am curious how you would recommend comparing the strength of these 2 answers to definitely determine which is right. I just ended up with a coin flip, and using all my spare time staring at it trying to decide if I can disprove either answer.
Thanks for your help(and having tons of explanations for so many tests not behind a paywall.)
Glad to hear you’re enjoying the site!
You’re right that the key to RC main point questions isn’t to ask which is factually accurate/true but rather what the author is trying to establish across the entire passage.
When you look at the structure, the author does two big things:
1. Show that global warming is real
2. Evaluate competing explanations before concluding that greenhouse gases are the strongest explanation
Every paragraph builds on that development: warming is happening, objections to the greenhouse effect can be answered (sulfates), alternative causes like solar cycles don’t fully explain the rise, and therefore the greenhouse effect is the best account of the trend. That’s exactly what D gets at.
C feels tempting because it states something true from one section (that earlier models overestimated warming and newer data brings estimates more in line with reality). But that’s just a supporting detail within the paragraph on sulfates. C doesn’t mention the solar cycle discussion, ignores the passage’s real conclusion, and essentially reduces the passage to a technical correction to old models.
Whether that paragraph is an “important enough part of the passage to be a part of the main point” isn’t the way to distinguish between C and D here. To justify D, you would have to say that every other paragraph and argument made in the passage exists to support that old models got it wrong. C isn’t just saying that that paragraph is a PART of the main point, it’s saying that it IS the main point (with the implication that everything else merely supports it).
So whenever one answer summarizes a single paragraph while the other reflects the overall theme and argumentative purpose of the entire passage, the latter is the main point (D in this case).
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have further questions.
Hi I was just wondering how come for section 1 RC none of the passages or questions are explained?
Hi! Unfortunately, we haven’t gotten around to writing explanations for every single section just yet. This is one of the few we don’t have coverage on right now, but we’re working on making these available. I can’t provide an exact timeline, but you’ll receive an email once it’s ready.
Hi! I’m curious if there are answers to practice test 150 section 1 (reading comp). I’m looking online and I see the answers and explanations to all but the first section.
Hi! We don’t have explanations for all sections yet, but are working on writing more. Explanations take a ton of time though, so unfortunately I can’t provide an exact estimate.
But if you have questions about a specific passage or question, just reply to this comment and I’ll happily answer/explain!
q 20
Hi, here’s the explanation for PT 150, S1, Q20:
The passage is about the evolutionary impact of cooking on human anatomy. It starts by noting the assumption that cooking shouldn’t have affected biology, since it makes food easier to eat. But the evidence shows that human today cannot survive on raw diets in the wild (incl. obstacles like the toughness of raw plants and raw meat). The author argues cooking is obligatory and evolutionary signs point to this like changes in our teeth, jaws, and digestive anatomy. The main point here is that humans have indeed biologically adapted to cooked food, not raw food.
That’s answer B, which captures the overall argument that humans are biologically adapted to cooked food.
The other answers:
A: The passage acknowledges open questions, but it still points to enough evidence to say that we have adapted to cooking. So “unresolved by current science” is too strong. The main focus is also on the effects of cooking, not why we’re unable to survive on raw food.
C: The reduction of teeth and jaw size is one part of the evidence, but not the main point.
D: This is neither the main point nor a key piece of evidence. It’s just something that’s mentioned as background in paragraph 1.
E: The point of the passage is actually to reject this assumption. This is the assumption that’s mentioned in the first few sentences.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have other questions.
Could you please please explain 150.1.18? I’m genuinely stumped by this question and no explanation I’ve found online has been good enough. I just feel like B) completely goes against the concept of choosing answer choices in RC that are DIRECTLY supported by the passage. The author of Passage B says nothing about detective stories.
Towards the middle-end of paragraph 1 of passage B, the author says: “We are free to read any text by any reading protocol we wish.” That directly supports that the author would agree with answer B.
I think you’re misinterpreting what it means that an answer has to be directly supported by the passage. If by directly, you mean that every word or idea in the answer has to be explicitly stated in the passage, that is wrong. In fact, many RC answer choices are based on implication. They will always be supported by the passage in the sense that you can find direct justification for the answer in the passage (as is the case here), but there’s by no means a requirement that it needs to be explicitly stated. The LSAT requires you to draw reasonable implications based on the passage.
This can also be seen in the wording of the question. When they’re asking you which statement both authors are most likely to agree with, they’re not saying “What did both authors say?” They’re saying, given the information you read in the passage, choose one of these statements (that neither passage would’ve written explicitly) that was most strongly implied by both authors.
If we were to take the “explicitly written” approach, technically answer B wouldn’t apply to passage A either as passage A never mentions science fiction. The support for answer B from passage A is where it writes: “that he or she might ready any narrative as a detective story” in the middle of paragraph 1.
Note that these two supporting sentences from each passage essentially say the exact same thing: you can read any genre as any other genre. So if you can read any genre as any other genre, it’s not wrong to infer that they’d agree which answer B, which just gives two examples of genres.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have other questions.