LSAT 135, Section 3, RC Passage 1, Autobiography

This is an explanation for passage 1 of LSAT preptest 65, the December 2011 LSAT. This passage is autobiography by American Latinas in the 1980’s.

This section has paragraph summaries and an analysis of the passage, links to the explanations for the questions are below.

Paragraph Summaries

1. Literature by American Latinas was prominent in the 1980’s. Latina autobiography also became popular in the late 1980’s.
2. The Latinas’ stories are innovative, confronting linguistic and cultural boundaries. Their autobiographies use innovative styles.
3. A lengthy description of the mixed styles used in three autobiographies.
4. These Latina authors have revolutionized autobiographies and shattered the silence that the world assumed Latinas were confined to.

Analysis

This is a classic theme for an LSAT passage. It’s all here:

• Autobiographies no one has read, outside of a specialized community
• A minority group
• Innovative styles
• Breaking of multiple traditional boundaries
• Mixing of styles and genres

There’s been some debate as to why these themes occur on the LSAT. My guess is that it’s because almost no one knows anything about them. If this passage were about Shakespeare, then English majors would have an advantage. With this topic, almost no LSAT students have an edge.

A familiarity with LSAT themes will help you interpret these passages. An LSAT author will almost always be supportive of everything that nontraditional authors do. This supportive perspective can help you assess answer choices.

This support for nontraditional artists will generally exist on all passages of this type, though of course you must make sure the passage you are reading fits the model.

In this case, the Latina authors successfully cross boundaries and mix styles. The third paragraph is very important. You don’t need to know all the details there, but it has a lot of useful information. A second reading will help you retain more of it.

This passage is hard to understand. But many of the answer choices are actually easy to eliminate, if you’re clear about what the passage says.

For instance, the passage does not mention academics, or scholars, and the passage only mentions a critic once (line 30), as an aside.

Yet on question 5, all the wrong answers talk about scholars, critics, and academics. Those answers assume you were hallucinating when you read the passage. Stick to what the passage says!

This is why you should be very clear on what the passage says before you start. If you know what the passage says, then you’ll recognize that most of the wrong answers are fancy nonsense. If you’re interested in why the LSAC uses nonsense answers, I’ve written a note below.

There’s little to analyze in this passage. Instead, success depends on having a clear idea of what these Latina authors have done. They used an innovative structure that mixes genres.

Note on Hallucinatory Answers

I mentioned that the answers to question 5 assume you were hallucinating. It’s an odd situation: why do the wrong answers talk about academics, scholars, and critics? Those groups aren’t mentioned in the passage.

This goes to the heart of what reading comprehension is testing. Many people are lazy readers. I am sometimes, too, but not when reading the LSAT. You shouldn’t be either.

The Latina biographies sound vaguely scholarly. You can imagine a stereotypical left-wing professor talking about them over coffee. A literary critic might review these books for a newspaper. Booo-ring.

I’m not suggesting that these elites are the actual readers of the biographies. What I’m suggesting is that your entire cultural experience has given you stereotypes and biases. And most people in your culture will share the stereotype that only scholars and critics will read boring, fancy books like these Latina autobiographies.

Note that I am not saying that the autobiographies actually are boring. The books may in fact be very interesting. But the LSAC knows that most readers of this passage would assume the books are boring. Further, readers will assume that the books are boring in a specific, liberal, scholarly, lit-crit fashion.

And that’s where LSAC hits you. They know most readers associate these books with dull academics and literary critics. So a lazy reader will assume the passage mentions those groups at some point.

Hence, several wrong answers refer to scholars, academics and critics, even though those groups are not in the passage. The LSAC knows exactly what biases you’re prone to.

There’s a method to this madness.

This is just one example, but it’s part of a trend. On many passages wrong answers will refer to think that weren’t in the passage. These answers are calculated to play to your unconscious biases. Know the passage well, and you can easily avoid them.

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