Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 104 · Section 2 · Passage 1
Questions 1–6
Before you start
Open PrepTest 104, Section 2 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 1–6, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: praises one figure's output, then claims a group of judges has never given that figure fair credit
- P2: describes the figure's first change of direction and what grew out of it
- P3: describes a second change of direction
- P4: describes a third change, the method behind it, and renewed hostility from the judges
- P5: gives the author's own reason for the hostility and closes by defending the figure
Step 2 · The kid passage
Nadia, Inventor of Recess
Few kids at Maple Hill have invented more recess games than Nadia. Yet the Recess Ranking Committee, a group of sixth graders who score every new game, keeps giving her low marks. They grumble that she drops each style just when they get used to it. Nadia began with classic chase games: fast, frantic, and built around one star runner. Then, in third grade, she joined a rainy-day club that met in the library basement. The club slowed everything down and made teamwork matter as much as any single hero, on purpose, as a reply to the chase craze. Those basement ideas later became the 'Quiet Corner' games now popular at the school across town. Nadia did not stay there. Next she made a game with no fixed turn order, so each player picked a personal path across the field. By fifth grade she was using walkie-talkies, and her usual method was to let players make things up from a short plan sheet, film it, and then stitch the best clips into a finished game video, like a movie editor. The Committee was furious: a real game, they said, should be played live, start to finish. Probably what really bugs them is fear. Nadia keeps widening what a game can be, which is what every great inventor does. Because she never stops and never sits in one style, the Committee cannot fit her onto its ranking ladder.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Unranked Pumpkin Carver
In a fictional county court, a pumpkin carver sued the harvest fair's judging panel for never placing her in the top ten. Mr. Whitfield snapped his suspenders. "Your Honor, her pumpkins are wonderful. First she carved faces, then lanterns with lace patterns, then glowing pumpkin towers. Each time the panel complained she had abandoned the old style." The panel's lawyer said the judges simply disliked her work. Mr. Whitfield smiled. "Then why do they praise carvers who did one great pumpkin and retired? I say the judges fear change. Their scoring chart has boxes for one style per carver. She refuses to fit a box." The judge nodded. "So your point is the low scores say more about the chart than the carver."