Reading Comprehension · Social Science
PrepTest 101 · Section 1 · Passage 2
Questions 7–13
Before you start
Open PrepTest 101, Section 1 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 7–13, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: introduces an event and says it drew wide support with effects at several levels
- P2: lists the effects, one group at a time, with a brief example
- P3: explains the reasons those effects happened
- P4: draws a general lesson from the case for similar communities
Step 2 · The kid passage
Save the Bluejay Garden
Lots of kids at Oakwood Elementary spent summers at Camp Bluejay. Last spring, two Bluejay counselors started a Garden Keepers group to tend the camp's old vegetable garden. That very week, the camp's owner announced he would pave the garden for a parking lot. So the two counselors rode the bus to Oakwood to ask the town council for help.
The Bluejay kids at Oakwood rallied. Normally the older and younger campers barely talk, and the Cabin 3 kids and the Cabin 7 kids bicker. Not this time. Nadia and Owen, fifth graders who had never joined any cause and thought Bluejay was just Grandpa's old photos, painted signs and started asking Grandpa for old camp songs. First-year Bluejay kids swapped stories with first-year kids from Camp Heron, and they became fast friends. Even the garden club and the art club joined in.
Why did it work? The cause was simple: keep the garden. No big slogans, nothing to argue about. Everyone could see they wanted the same thing.
The lesson, says Ms. Rivera: a group's pride needs more than old photos in a scrapbook. Joining a fight for the place you came from, right now, may be the best way to stand tall.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Mural on Elm Street
Judge Okafor peered over her glasses. 'Why is half the city in my courtroom?' Mr. Whitfield smiled. 'Graduates of the old Elm Street School, Your Honor. The day two students formed an Art Keepers club, the building's owner scheduled the hallway mural to be painted over.' The gallery was packed: grandparents, teenagers who had never attended a hearing, recent graduates, even the city's sign painters. 'These people usually disagree about everything,' Whitfield said. 'But this cause had no slogans, just: keep the mural.' A teenager in the front row raised her hand. 'I learned more about my old school this month than in ten years of reunion slideshows.' Whitfield turned to the judge. 'That, Your Honor, is the point.'