RC Question 10 Explanation, by LSATHacks
DISCUSSION: As with other specific detail questions, the passage literally answers this one. If you can’t find lines to support your answer, your answer is likely wrong.
___________
- Chopin avoided romantic, sentimental language. See lines 32-37.
- Lines 38-40 contradict this: Chopin did not mythologize the past.
- CORRECT. Lines 32-37 describe Chopin’s detached narrative. She used the conventions of local color to accomplish this detachment.
- Lines 48-52 describe how Chopin’s stories avoided crisp plots.
- Lines 29-30 do say that Chopin used lonely protagonists. But the passage never says why Chopin does this.
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In this question, why does it matter in answer choice E “why” she did a specific thing?
I was wondering the same too. I guess a better reason to eliminate E is because we don’t know whether other 19th century women writers portray lonely, isolated protagonists?
You’re correct. I think Graeme phrased it that way to show that every other aspect of Chopin’s writing has a justification/source/reason why, but the isolated protagonists were thrown in as a red herring since the passage never specifically mentions them.
Paragraph 3 is where we find both our correct answer and what might prompt someone to choose E. The local colorists/19th century women writers reported events like “local colors”, which Chopin also did. This allowed her to tell tales in “uninflected manner(s)”.
This paragraph mentions “loneliness, isolation” but these adjectives don’t describe protagonists – they describe stories. So technically we can still have a “lonely” story where the main character has a bunch of friends. On the LSAT, you can’t equate things like story = protagonist, so E is wrong.