LSAT 158 | Section 1 | Reading Comprehension: Q15

RC Question 15 Explanation

DISCUSSION: This question is tricky one. To start, think about Kewes’ passage. She directly comments on Ricks’ essay, and mostly disagrees with him. So, look in her passage to see where she does agree; this will likely be the answer. At the start of her paragraph 3, Kewes says Ricks is “rightly” dismissive of post-modernists, and agrees it is “also” true when Ricks says modern scholars inappropriately apply modern racial and gender standards to past controversies.

So these are the only two things Kewes says are correct in Ricks’ essay, so the answer must be one of these:

1. Post modernists bad
2. It is bad to project modern ideas onto the past

The other answers serve to distract you. They talk about things that couldn’t possibly be correct. The worst wrong answer are things the authors agree about, but disagree with. We need something the authors agree about and agree with.

___________

1. This answer is Rosenthal’s opinion. Ricks disagreed with her. And Kewes shares Ricks view that the postmodernists are wrong, see her paragraph 3, line 1.
    
   So both authors might disagree with this answer, but we need something they agree on.
2. The first lines of paragraph 3 in passage B show this answer is wrong. There, Kewes agrees with Ricks that it is wrong to reduce everything to power. Both authors disagree that this answer is true. We’re looking for something they agree is true.
3. It seems Ricks disagrees. Ricks, in Paragraph 1, line 2, says that the postmodern view is that plagiarism isn’t real. (This really means the modern academic view). That’s obviously less stringent than past attitudes. We need something both authors agree on.
4. This is way too general. Both Ricks and Kewes seem to agree that Rosenthal believes plagiarism is only based on power (and thus plagiarists are absolved?). But this answer is talking about all historical scholarship, and Rosenthal certainly is not the author of all historical scholarship on plagiarism. Even if we expand the topic of discussion to include all postermodern authors,  they are not “all scholarship”: there are many schools of historians. This answer is simply too broad, and as such we don’t know either author’s opinion. Though, we can guess at Ricks’ view: he hates plagiarism, so it is likely that Ricks believes that proper historical scholarship would not approve of plagiarists. Thus, at least Ricks would disagree with this answer.
    
   This answer could have been correct if it had said “Rosenthal’s scholarship absolves plagiarists of responsibility”. There isn’t great support for this in passage B, but it would have at least been a much more supportable answer.
5. CORRECT. Passage A’s author, Ricks, talks about how Rosenthal reduces moral standards to expressions of power. This is Rosenthal’ “current ideological pre-occupation” which she is projecting inappropriately (in Ricks’ opinion) onto the past. In Passage B, Kewes talks about “shoddy scholarship” that projects modern-day ideologies onto historical controversies (paragraph 3, second sentence).