LSAT 158 | Section 1 | Reading Comprehension: Q11

RC Question 11 Explanation

DISCUSSION: This question is asking about the author’s opinion on the literary criticism mentioned in the first paragraph. If you understood the passage, you’d know that the author thinks that it committed a key mistake in labeling the picaro a “trickster” when the picaro and the trickster are pretty different characters.

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1. “Denigrated” means to cast aspersions on someone or something’s reputation. Even if you didn’t know what “denigrated” means, the word “systematically” should be a clue this isn’t right. We only know what literary criticism says about picaro and trickster stories. We don’t know what literary criticism says about other aspects of Native American literature.
2. That’s not right. The passage clearly uses the word “trickster” in reference to the Native American trickster character. There’s no word confusion.
    
   You may have read this answer to mean that the picaro has nothing to do with the trickster. That isn’t right either: the picaro is at least superficially similar to the trickster. While the literary critics are wrong, their mistake is at least understandable.
3. The critics’ interpretations of stories of picaros and tricksters aren’t at odds. In fact the critics’ error was that they read the trickster stories as being the same as picaro stories! A reading means an interpretation, and the critics wrongly interpreted both types of stories as being the same.
    
   It may be true in reality that the trickster and the picaro are at odds with each other. But this question is asking about the critics (incorrect) reading of the two stories. And their readings interpreted the characters to be the same, so their (incorrect) readings aren’t at odds with each other.
4. There was no attempt to be precise over terminology. Eliminate. An answer can’t be right if it isn’t mentioned in the passage.
    
   In fact the critics were not precise enough! They applied the term trickster broadly when it shouldn’t be applied to picaros.
5. CORRECT. The author thinks that these critics don’t have a complete understanding of the trickster. Trickster stories are not satires, for example.