LSAT 145 | Section 3 | Reading Comprehension: Q18

RC Question 18 Explanation

DISCUSSION: Passage A argues that animal communication is involuntary and an automatic response to stimuli. The author of passage B disagrees with this in paragraph 4.

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1. Both authors are talking mainly about what non-human animals can do. Humans are mentioned only as for contrast.
2. Both authors are engaged in debate, but neither author says how important the debate is.
    
   Arguments matching answer:
    
   Author A: This is a useless topic, but I’ll argue about it anyway.
    
   Author B: This is an important topic. Here is my argument.
3. CORRECT. The fourth paragraph of passage B suggests that animal and human communications are only different by degree: see lines 60-62. (Quantitative = by degree).
    
   The author of passage A disagrees: they argue that animals don’t communicate with intention. See lines 8-11 and 27-29.
4. Nope. The authors would agree here. The author of passage A says that chimpanzees may be able to attribute mental states. And the author of passage B is arguing that humans and animals are closer than we think (see paragraph 4), so they would probably agree with this.
5. The author of passage A says this. The author of passage B wouldn’t disagree.
    
   The main idea of passage B is that animals may be more capable of conscious communication than we think. That has nothing to do with whether behaviors evolved to produce benefits.