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 Administrator
PowerScore Staff
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#35181
Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=14202)

The correct answer choice is (A)

This question references the final paragraph of the passage, in which the author points out that
the U.S. Latina authors redrew the boundaries of the autobiography rather than conforming to
“existing generic parameters.” The correct answer choice will provide standard boundaries of the
autobiography to which the examples discussed do not conform.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. In the third paragraph the author discusses
Cherrie Moraga’s Loving in the War Years, and the fact that her non-chronological retelling of events
represents an important distinction between men’s and women’s autobiographies.

Answer choice (B): In the second paragraph of the passage, the author provides that the examples
discussed do not tend to give preference to any particular mode of presentation, so this choice does
not provide an existing generic parameter to which the
examples discussed do not conform.

Answer choice (C): The author mentions that the collections discussed address the politics of
multicultural identities, not that they have political overtones, so this choice does not provide the
“existing generic parameter” referenced in the question.

Answer choice (D): This choice provides that sketches and poems need not be separated by genre,
and the autobiographies discussed in the passage do not make these separations. Thus, this is not one
of the existing parameters broken by the examples discussed in the passage.

Answer choice (E): This answer does not provide a traditional parameter that was broken by the
examples discussed in the passage, so this choice can be ruled out of contention.
 cardinal2017
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  • Joined: Oct 23, 2016
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#34027
Hi,

I got the rest questions right but this one.

It was unclear from the beginning what this question stem is asking.

The author most likely intends to include which principle among the "existing generic parameters"?

Include which principle (in what?)

in the passage? that part was unclear so I started to get confused by the wording of the Q stem.

Further, by 'intends to include,' do they mean that the author intends to promote or support such principle? (that's what I could guess when trying to read the stem again as in my review session.)

But seeing the answer, I guess it (the author intend to include) doesn't mean 'the author intend to support or promote, or even slightly favor.'

I guess the question means, by 'the author most likely intends to include one of the following principles among the 'existing generic parameters,'

you should opt for the principle which is included in the stimulus as one sample of the existing generic parameters referred to in the passage.

Is this view or reading of the question stem valid, or correct?

Thanks in advance,
 Luke Haqq
PowerScore Staff
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#34045
Hi Cardinal2017!

I agree that this question stem isn't worded in the clearest language possible, but the conclusion you reached is definitely correct. As you write:
you should opt for the principle which is included in the stimulus as one sample of the existing generic parameters referred to in the passage.
That's exactly what they're looking for in the right answer choice. The author of the passage makes clear that one thing innovative about authors like Anzaldúa and Moraga is that they wrote without sticking to a strict chronology. Since the author took this to be innovative, this is suggestive that the author of the passage views writing in a straight chronology would be like "forcing their personal histories to conform to existing generic parameters." This is why (A) would be correct.

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