RC section -- tricky Main Idea questions Forum

[aegor]

These are the only ones that I miss, and they can be very frustrating. And it is not even all main idea questions. It is those with answer choices that do not encompass everything in the passage. The correct answer choice will accurately describe only a part of the passage, not making mention of what seems to be several paragraphs of relevant, core info.

To take an example, I just finished PrepTest 13. Section 3 Question 21 asks about the main idea of the passage (juries and inferential errors), but the correct answer choice (A) makes no mention whatsoever of the last third of the passage, wherein the author discusses cognitive psychology, judges, and ways to reduce inferential errors. This was particularly surprising since the author appeared to be building to the analysis/recommendations toward the end of the passage. The answer choice I selected (E) seemed to be more encompassing.

To generalize, how can one tell when part of the passage should be ignored entirely for the purposes of these questions? Prephrasing, at least my attempts at it, does not work for them because an accurate summary of the passage does not adequately narrow down the answer choices.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[Jeffort]

You should NEVER ignore parts of the passage for MP questions, that would lead to all sorts of trouble. The CR always ENCOMPASSES everything covered in the passage even though it doesn't always explicitly reference every main idea used to support the main point.

Encompasses vs explicitly mentions is an important distinction in terms of how to properly analyze and process MP ACs.

Scope of the meaning of the ideas explicitly expressed in each AC is essential to consider to determine whether it is broad enough to be the CR by covering all the main ideas discussed. The determination cannot be correctly made just from inventorying the ideas explicitly mentioned in the AC and comparing that to the main things explicitly mentioned in the paragraphs, you have to think deeper and bigger picture in terms of the broad ideas vs. more narrow supporting ideas that fall under the broader umbrella. You have to consider the scope/broadness of the overall idea expressed by the AC to properly think about whether it covers everything discussed.

Just because the AC sentence doesn't explicitly mention a particular part of the passage doesn't mean the idea isn't included/incorporated in the broader ideas explicitly expressed. That is what is going on with the CR for this passage along with another uncommon feature you shouldn't expect to find in many passages. This passage is a rare example where the main point is explicitly stated in a single sentence in the opening paragraph. Notice that the end of the last sentence of the first paragraph contains almost word for word what (A) says. At that point in the passage it was just an unsupported claim. The rest of the passage including the last paragraph is the support/premises. The last paragraph where it tells you that judges could, but don't implement advice from cognitive psychologists establishes that current actual juries are in situations where measures aren't taken to prevent such errors, therefore they could happen and obscure the truth due to flawed findings. Due to this, AC (A) very much covers/encompasses the last paragraph since without it, the last sentence of the first paragraph (and the CR) would be an unsupported claim because we wouldn't know whether or not courts were actively doing anything about it in reality.

(E) is incorrect because it states a conclusion that reaches beyond the support and ideas/information presented in the passage. It's basically an unsupported speculative conclusion with zero evidence. There could be a host of problems if psychologists took over part of conducting jury trials and played an active role, and no evidence about how it might play out in reality is presented. The psychologists could confuse the crap out of the jury and cause them to use really bad confused reasoning to reach bad decisions. It is entirely about the future whereas everything in the passage is about present day with zero speculation or predictions about changed circumstances. It's also incorrect because it ignores everything about why jurors might make incorrect inferences, which is everything in the passage except the last paragraph.

Don't worry about this slightly odd configuration, it's a really old test and the RC style and construction has evolved significantly in the 20 years since this PT. You won't be finding any RC MP CRs on the modern test where it's almost an exact copy/paste of a sentence from the passage, those were gimmie easy version MP questions for LSAT rookies back then when the test was young and largely unknown with only a few previous PTs to learn from.

Don't be super rigid with every main part of the passage having to be explicitly referenced in the MP CR. Sometimes certain parts will be incorporated by mention of a broader scope idea built on it. The test writers sometimes like to purposely omit explicit reference to some memorable parts of the passage but instead incorporate it with broader idea phrasing to create a higher difficulty level MP question meant to target test takers that overly focus on explicit text instead of bigger picture meaning of broad ideas conveyed.

[Twitch]

Oh, Jeffort is here.

+1; Everyone else can all go home now.

[Clyde Frog]

Oh, Jeffort is here.

+1; Everyone else can all go home now.

Lol yeah for real. That was an insanely impressive response. It actually made me pull out the first 10 actual, official LSAT preptests to look it up.

[aegor]

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[aegor]

Thanks Jeffort.

My problem was in missing the connection of the last two paragraphs with the rest of the passage; more specifically, I failed to identify it as support of the statement in the first paragraph. It seemed to me like a progression of thought rather than support for the idea expressed at the beginning of the passage.

My strategy going forward will be to examine in more detail what purpose each paragraph serves. The passages that seem to me to be moving onto a new/different topic (there was an earlier one about written law in Ancient Greece structured in the same way) instead have an ostensibly disconnected section that is in fact offering support for the main argument. I have been failing to notice the subordination of these sections because all of it is implicit.

For the record, I was debating between A and E.

[Lightworks]

50/50 Main Idea questions used to be the bain of my existance. Drill, drill, and drill.

[aegor]

Yeah. Out of six preptests the only 3 RC questions I missed were all main idea.