RC Question 4 Explanation, by LSATHacks
DISCUSSION: This question gives us no hints, so we can’t go back to the passage before looking at the answers. We’ll have to evaluate the answers one by one.
Remember the main point of the passage: the autobiographies have innovative structures.
___________
- CORRECT. See lines 17-21. These autobiographies use poetry, sketches and other forms commonly found in literature or other books. Line 36 mentions that the books are departing from the conventions of autobiography.
- Line 20 mentions journal entries, but we don’t know if they were unpublished, and we don’t know if each autobiography used journal entries.
- Careful. We know each author’s cultural background was influential. But the authors may not have analyzed how their cultural background influenced their books’ content.
- We only know this is true of Getting Home Alive. The other authors may have written their own poetry.
- Same as C. The authors used innovative structures. They surely had their reasons and methodologies for doing so. But the passage doesn’t say that the authors explained their methods to their readers.
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I picked answer choice “E” – “Each includes explanations of the methodologies that its author, or authors, used in writing the autobiography”.
Didn’t the passage explain the methodologies that those authors used in writing their autobiography? The methods that those authors used were to include poetry, essays, sketches, short stories, journal entries, a mixture of Spanish and English, playing with narrative sequence, changing chronological orders, using multiple voices etc.
The third paragraph discusses each book and its author as well as the way or method that the autobiography is written.
Of course, answer choice “A” also made sense, but if we looked at paragraph three, it only mentions the inclusion of poetry or other genre’s in passing, and further details the other methods that the authors used in writing their autobiographies. Wouldn’t the totality of including different genres and playing with chronological orders, using multiple voices, mixing Spanish and English, etc. be the methodology?
For E to be correct, it would have to be true that the works themselves explained their methodologies. The answer isn’t referring to the passage. It’s referring to the books.
i.e. Author says: “In this work, the Aurora Levins used poetry” –> Does not correspond to E
In Aurora Levins book “I used poetry, because this methodology allowed me to….” –> Does correspond to E.
The passage doesn’t say that any author explained their own methodology. E is tricky, because it is referring to something subtly different than you thought.
this is epic. I can’t stop crying
For Question #4, I still don’t see how E is wrong. Doesn’t each autobiographer list out their respective methodologies?
Anzaldua — juxtaposes narrative sequences and poetry (line 25)
Moraga — lists the events in her life story not chronologically but rather in terms of political development (line 28-30)
Getting Home Alive – bringing together the voices of two people, a mother and daughter.
Aren’t these methodologies?
Ah, so that is the passage giving methodologies. Answer E says the books themselves list their methodologies, and we simply don’t know if the books do that.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.