Reading Comprehension · Science
PrepTest 104 · Section 2 · Passage 3
Questions 15–21
Before you start
Open PrepTest 104, Section 2 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 15–21, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: sets up background (a competition with costs) and introduces a hypothesis about why a visible signal would help
- P2: reports one researcher's claims that his data back the hypothesis
- P3: the author argues that the researcher's numbers do not back his claims, grants a narrower point, then explains why that narrower point does not count
- P4: presents what the author calls the strongest evidence, a correlation that survives when other factors are held steady
- P5: describes a clever experiment that adds further support
Step 2 · The kid passage
The Sticker Code of the Swing Set
At recess, kids at Maple Street School compete for the three good swings. They settle it with rock-paper-scissors duels, and the winner of many duels earns a rank, with higher ranks getting first pick. But duels cost something: lost recess minutes, sore throats from yelling, and the odd scraped knee. So a kid who could skip duels without losing rank would come out ahead. One way: a visible sign that announces how good you are, so nobody bothers to challenge you. Call it the Badge Idea. Marcus claimed his notes proved the Badge Idea. He said kids with more stickers on their backpacks nearly always win duels, even against kids in their own grade. But his own notebook says otherwise: sticker-heavy kids won just 30 of 50 duels, and among same-grade kids they won 21 and lost 20. Stickers probably do mark grade: older kids, who usually have lots of stickers, outrank younger kids, who usually have few, and a younger kid covered in borrowed stickers beat unstickered classmates. Still, stickers say nothing about rank inside a grade, so this is not really the Badge Idea. The best evidence comes from the jump-rope club. The width of a kid's club wristband tracks duel success closely, and when Lulu held grade, height, and age steady, rank was the only thing that still matched wristband width. Then Priya ran a clever test. She set a cardboard cutout wearing a wristband by the swings. Kids walked right up to cutouts with narrower bands than their own and challenged them, but backed away from cutouts with wider bands.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Trial of the Shiny Hard Hat
A construction firm claimed that workers with gold hard hats are always the best crane operators, so customers should pay extra for them. Mr. Whitfield stood up in his suspenders and opened the firm's own logbook. "Gold hats won the speed test in only 31 of 52 trials," he said. "Among workers with the same years on the job, gold hats won 18 and lost 17. That is a coin flip." He allowed that gold hats usually go to veterans, and veterans do outperform rookies. "But that tells you about experience, not about each worker. The hat is not doing the job you claim." The judge agreed: the firm's data did not match the firm's boast.