RC Question 25 Explanation
DISCUSSION: Author agreement questions are heavily based on the passage. You can usually find a specific line that proves the right answer.
Questions like this show that it’s worthwhile to take extra time reading and understanding the passage. This will improve your recall of the details, and help you spot the right answer on this type of question.
___________
- The author actually never mentions optical equipment or mirror quality. Presumably an explanation for mirrors should make sense even for poorly constructed mirrors, and even if we don’t have fancy equipment to confirm the theory.
- The author only mentioned two theories of mirrors, and they only argued one of them was wrong (the front-to-back) theory. So the author doesn’t say why mirrors explanations fail in general.
- CORRECT. The first sentence of paragraph 4 supports this. They say that the observer/phenomenon separation is part of the reason why some scientists support the front-to-back theory.
- The second sentence of paragraph 3 says “we” think in terms of mental constructs. Mental constructs seem natural. The passage doesn’t say any of us avoid mental constructs. And even some scientists like the front-to-back theory, so they must be thinking in terms of mental constructs.
- This is almost right. If it had ended by saying “mental constructs interfere….with an accurate understanding of how mirrors work” then this answer would have been right.
But the answer doesn’t say that. You need to read every word on the LSAT. The passage doesn’t say that mental constructs interfere with our understanding of perceptions.
For 25, I thought (C) was the best answer by far (with [E] a weak second) but I was hesitant because they used the term “physicists” in the AC and “scientists” in this answer’s supported passage lines.
I know that physicists are scientists like Catholics are Christians, but this passage specifically used the terms “physicists” and “scientists” in different paragraphs. I feel like (C) is kind of cheap on LSAC’s part; they could have said scientists to avoid this kind of trepidation for test takers who noted the subtle difference.
Hi,
So do you mean we should read the whole passage for questions like this?
If you’ve taken the time to understand the passage and make quick summaries of each paragraph as you read, your short-term recall of the passage should allow you to very quickly the scan the passage for the relevant area(s) where the answer is found. You can then quickly find the relevant sentence(s) to determine the right answer.