LSAT 153 | Section 4 | Reading Comprehension: Q25

RC Question 25 Explanation

DISCUSSION: This question references text in the middle of a sentence. To understand what the author means by “cognitive satisfaction” you should read the entire sentence. The line starts with “but”, which is an important contrast word.

Here, the contrast is: we don’t think deterministic theories are correct, and yet we liked the certainty they gave. They were comfortable and thus were satisfying. Cognitive means “of the mind” so these theories were comfortable for the mind even though they were wrong.

You can make the answers clearer by first thinking “Determinist theories were satisfying, and therefore…..”. The fact that the theories were satisfying will help explain the right answer, but not fit with the wrong answers.

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1. This answer mixes up both theories of history. Determinism is a theory that history develops according to universal laws (see end para 1). Whereas the author’s preferred theory of history is narrative, telling a story. See the second to last sentence, “narrative satisfaction….arrangement of events in a cogent story”
    
   Logic sounds like determinism. But “clarity of a good story” sounds like the author’s narrative preference. The author does not think their own preference is a “vain hope”, as this answer says! The author did want us to develop a narrative theory of history.
    
   Watch out for answers like this. It has familiar words, but really it’s just jumbling together unrelated concepts from the passage in a way that contradicts the author.
    
   This answer could have been right had it said something like “suggest why it is vain to think we can get rid of determinism, not replace it and leave people content” or somesuch.
2. CORRECT. Nostalgia is a longing for something from the past. So, the fact that determinist theories were comforting indeed shows why their death has us longing for the past.
3. Nonsense. The lines in the passage says that we long for the satisfaction of universal laws even as the theories declined. So this answer contradicts the passage.
4. If you read further into paragraph 3, the author actually proposes a narrative view of history! (2nd to last sentence). This answer contradicts the author’s views.
5. Interest in universal theories has already declined. We can long for something without being interested in actually believing in it. The sentence in question literally starts with “….we no longer believe sin….deterministic explanations of history”.