#22 - Concept Reference, Must Be True

[lsat982023]

CHi, I struggled on this question and ended up picking D although I didn't really like any answer. I see now how C connects more than any of the others to the passage but is the line about "abolishing fees for education" the only part of the passage that allows you to infer that the legislators were concerned with improving educational quality across economic strata as well as sexes?

[Adam Tyson]

Not at all, lsat982023! It's that whole section, where we learn that they favored schools for women and compulsory attendance for all students (meaning all genders, economic status, etc.) Also the fact that those legislators were hearkening back to the failed proposals around the time of the French Revolution that were, for their time, very egalitarian, and using those old arguments to justify their new proposals. They were trying to finally get done what was attempted and failed a century earlier - education for everyone.

[ashpine17]

I picked d because i thought the later legislators were more open to passing egalitarian proposals and that corresponded to being mpre open to compromise? Why is that problematic?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi ashpine17!

This question asks about French legislators in the 1880s, who are mentioned in the final paragraph: "in the early 1880s, French legislators recalled the earlier proposals in their justification of new laws that founded public secondary schools for women, abolished fees for education, and established compulsory attendance for all students" (lines 49-54).

There's nothing specifically mentioned in the final paragraph about these legislators in terms of a desire to compromise. There would need to be something implicitly or explicitly stated to that end for (D) to be viable. You're right that the legislation appeared more egalitarian, but it can't be inferred from the passage that this greater egalitarian focus was necessarily the result of compromise.

Rather, we can infer that they were concerned with educational equality between sexes--as they founded public secondary schools for women, and also were concerned with equality across economic strata--given that they they abolished fees for education (and made it mandatory).