LSAT and Law School Admissions Forum

Get expert LSAT preparation and law school admissions advice from PowerScore Test Preparation.

User avatar
 KelseyWoods
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 1079
  • Joined: Jun 26, 2013
|
#73717
Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (B).

This is a Specific Reference question, meaning we should return to the passage to prephrase the answer. The question stem refers us to lines 32-36, which give us Dove's observations from her time in Germany, where she says there were not restrictions between which genres that writers could create in. We should also think about the context of the paragraph these lines are in. This is the paragraph where the author tells us there's a trend toward blending the two genres and that Rita Dove is an example of this. So those lines show us how Rita Dove's experiences in Germany showed her that the distinction between poetry and fiction does not need to be as restrictive as it is in the U.S.

Answer choice (A): The lines refer to Dove's experience in Germany but do not suggest that the blending or separation of poetry and fiction have anything to do with whether or not the society is English-speaking or not.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. As prephrased, the referred to lines describe how Dove's experience in Germany showed her that poetry and fiction do not have to be rigidly separated.

Answer choice (C): Again, the lines refer to Dove's experience in Germany but do not suggest that her strengths as a writer can mainly be attributed to the fact that she has studied internationally. This answer choice doesn't address the blending of genres that she learned from her experience.

Answer choice (D): The author is not trying to enhance the human interest appeal of the passage. The entire passage is focused on the delineation between poetry and fiction and presenting Dove as an example of the blending of those genres, not providing biographical details of Dove.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice is too specific and too strong to be supported by the passage. The lines don't provide us with enough information to conclude that Dove's experience in Germany was the origin of her opposition to the separation of fiction and poetry. Just that the experience highlighted how that separation is unnecessary.
 saranash1
  • Posts: 168
  • Joined: May 21, 2013
|
#9663
Passage one
6. It says the answer is b but I don't understand why it couldn't be a. The author even says she studied some time in Germany and she observed poets write novels. She claiming that they would not understand our restrictiveness. this to me is trying to prove A.
 Ron Gore
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 220
  • Joined: May 15, 2013
|
#9694
Thank you for your question, Saranash1.

Answer (A) is incorrect because it is too expansive, i.e., in that it references "English-speaking societies," rather than simply the cultural perspective of the United States. Notice that this passage is confined to discussing the rift between poetry and fiction in the United States alone, and not more broadly in other English-speaking societies. (e.g., line 2, "United States"; line 16, "U.S. culture"; line 25, "African American"; line 39, "in the U.S.").

Hope that helps.

Ron
 saranash1
  • Posts: 168
  • Joined: May 21, 2013
|
#9746
As in the answer choice goes beyond the beyond the scope of what the author has established in the argument? because the scope is only u.s. cultures not all english speaking societies?
 Nikki Siclunov
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 1362
  • Joined: Aug 02, 2011
|
#9825
That is correct. These are essentially Prove-type questions, and scope expansion is sufficient to render a particular answer choice unprovable and therefore incorrect.

Get the most out of your LSAT Prep Plus subscription.

Analyze and track your performance with our Testing and Analytics Package.