LSAT 139 | Section 2 | Reading Comprehension: Q12

RC Question 12 Explanation

DISCUSSION: The main thing I noticed is that passage A is entirely about honeybees, whereas passage B is about how animals use symbolic language. For passage B, honeybees were just an example. For passage A, they were everything.

The answers are quite abstract, saying things like “a position” and “a phenomenon”. Before picking an answer, you must decide which position, which phenomenon. Those words have to refer to concepts.

Passage A and B don’t really disagree, so that makes answers A, B and D unlikely answers.

___________

1. Which position? To pick an answer like this you must have a very clear idea in mind.
    
   (There is none.)
2. Which phenomenon? If you thought “bee communication”, passage B discusses the bee dance in both paragraphs 2 and 3. So there were multiple examples in both passages.
3. CORRECT. The phenomenon is “bee dancing”. Passage A is entirely devoted to understanding it. Passage B only mentions it in support of its wider discussion of symbolic communication in animals.
4. Which phenomenon? This didn’t happen.
5. Passage B was primarily concerned with the phenomenon of symbolic speech in animals. Passage A didn’t even mention symbolic speech – the history in passage A was the history of knowledge about bee dances.