#24 - Specific Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[rwraulynaitis]

Hello,

I chose answer choice (E) and even after reviewing it, I am struggling to see how it is wrong. I interpreted "nothing is incredible" as meaning there are so many wild things in fairy tales that seem unreal to readers, and because they seem unreal, readers do not readily apply their judgments to them.

I took that to mean that if things in fairy tales were credible, then readers would apply their judgments to them.

This led me to (E).

[Adam Tyson]

I think your analysis of answer E here misses something important, rwraulynaitis. While you're correct that, in Freud's view, we don't apply our judgments to fairy tales, answer E is about us actively repressing elements that conflict with our judgments. That would mean we are very much applying our judgments to those stories! How else can we choose what to repress but to make judgments about what does and does not conflict with them?

The key to answering this question is to return to the text, where, in the second paragraph, we have the author's paraphrase of Freud's view. Why does Freud believe that in fairy tales nothing is incredible? Because in them "everything is possible." That is the best prephrase to bring to your sorting of the answers into losers and contenders, and answer C matches that idea perfectly.

Use the text to prepare for the answer choices, and select the best match based on that textual support. That's what Reading Comp on the LSAT is all about! It's not about what we remember from the passage, or what we think about the passage, but about what it actually says. Your analysis suggests that you did some interpretation and analysis of your own, rather than relying on just what the author had to say, and when we do that we run afoul of attractive wrong answers. Stick to the text, and you'll do just fine!