LSAT 153 | Section 4 | Reading Comprehension: Q24

RC Question 24 Explanation

DISCUSSION: This question is about the organization of the passage. Every answer mentions a “group of theories”, so we should define terms. The group of theories refers to the determinist theories. Marxism and Freudianism were examples.

Paragraph 2 explains what went wrong. The theories seemed to be good predictive models at the time: they had explained stuff that happened before. But as time past, it turned out the theories didn’t reflect reality and had no predictive power (see lines 19-21, “in recent years….”, start para 2)

Paragraph 3 then shows another view of history, the idea that events are somewhat random and individual and depend on each other but we can still form a narrative of history (i.e. tell a story).

___________

1. The group of theories is the determinist theories. The point of the passage is that they don’t have predictive accuracy! Further, no examples were given in the third paragraph.
2. The author thinks history does not progress according to natural laws. He doesn’t defend determinism! In the third paragraph he proposes an alternative instead.
3. CORRECT. See the discussion above. The mistake was believing history could unfold according to set laws. The alternative was instead focussing on particular and unrepeatable events, random contingent events, etc.
4. This was the most tempting wrong answer for me. The first part is right: the first two paragraphs do discuss the history of determinist theories. But, the second half is wrong. The author isn’t making a prediction about whether determinism will regain popularity or remain unpopular. Instead, their point is: determinism is wrong, and they’re instead proposing an alternative type of history. If I say “I propose the school board be abolished and replaced by a new system” I’m not speculating about the future of the school board….I’m taking action.
5. The first part of the passage does talk about the essential feature of determinism to some extent (though really that section is more about why determinism declined). But the second half of this answer is totally wrong: to be right, the author would have had to discuss differences between Freudianism and Marxism.