Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 102 · Section 1 · Passage 2
Questions 8–13
Before you start
Open PrepTest 102, Section 1 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 8–13, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: describes a recent revival, then a past period when outsiders studied the art while specialists chased side issues; quotes an older writer to show the habit is old
- P2: traces the side-issue habit back to an influential figure, explains how his followers narrowed his work, and shows the result
- P3: shows a relative of that figure building on his work and helping bring back attention to the art itself
Step 2 · The kid passage
The Story Behind the Gym Wall Mural
Lately, people at school are buzzing about the gym wall mural as a work of art. It was not always so. For about ten years, its admirers were outsiders, like the cafeteria cook and some parents, who kept asking what made it so beautiful. Meanwhile the History Club, the school's official mural experts, asked other things: Did the field trip in the picture really happen? What brand of paint was used? How did it get up on the wall? They wrote reports on paint cans and ladders, on anything except the mural as a picture. A grumpy note a student left in the club binder decades ago still fit perfectly: "The experts talk about everything except the painting."
Funny enough, this side-issue habit started with Mr. Bellweather, the most famous History Club leader ever. He showed, step by step, that many classes built the mural, each adding and polishing layers over the years. After he retired, his followers dropped his close looks at the picture itself. They studied just one slice of his work: the rules of layer painting, what layered murals can and cannot do. That was so dull that the creative members wandered off to study the school's building history.
Fittingly, Mr. Bellweather's granddaughter Junie helped bring the art back. She agreed that the mural grew from layers handed down by earlier classes, but she argued that the final painter also went beyond them with a style all her own. Her view opened the door to today's interest.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Untasted Pies
"Your Honor," said Mr. Whitfield, tugging his suspenders, "for twenty years the county fair's pie judges measured crust thickness and oven heat. Nobody tasted a single pie!" Judge Okafor frowned. "How did that start?" "With Mabel Crump, the great baking scholar. She proved that fair pies came from recipes passed down and improved over many generations. But her followers kept only her list of what a handed-down recipe can and cannot do. It was so boring that the clever judges went off to study the history of the fairground." "And now?" "Now her grandson, Ned Crump, says each pie comes from a family recipe and also beats it. So the judges are tasting again." The judge nodded. "So we have the situation, and we have where it came from."