LSAT 158 | Section 1 | Reading Comprehension: Q14

RC Question 14 Explanation

DISCUSSION: This one is fairly straightforward. Both passages talk about plagiarism and how we should think about it in terms of history. The italicized text above the passages says both authors are historians!

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1. The modern concept of the author isn’t mentioned nor does either passage talk about its development through the centuries. Plagiarism obviously involves an author but the passages surprisingly never directly address authorship.
2. This isn’t mentioned at all. Eliminate. Passage B does say plagiarism “has a history”, but the author gives us no specifics on when this history began.
3. It wouldn’t make sense for either Ricks or Kewes to dwell on power. It is postmodern authors like Rosenthal who place much importance on power. See passage B, paragraph 3, first sentence or passage A, paragraph 1, final sentence. Both Ricks and Kewes, the authors of passages A and B, criticize the postmodern view that power is the most important thing to analyze.
4. The passage has no direct discussion of the difference between plagiarism and imitation. The closest we get is Rosenthal saying she was going to “question” the difference between plagiarism and imitation. Then Ricks tells us this questioning is insincere: really Rosenthal believes there is no difference between those two things.
    
   Ricks does believe there are differences, but he takes them as a given and does not discuss specifics.
5. CORRECT. Both authors discuss how plagiarism should be understood historically. Ricks believe we should have moral clarity when examining past plagiarism (see the second half of his paragraph 3), whereas Kewes believes moral views of plagiarism are historical-context dependent. See second half of her paragraph 3.