Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 104 · Section 3 · Passage 4
Questions 22–26
Before you start
Open PrepTest 104, Section 3 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 22–26, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: presents a famous thinker's definition of a concept and where he says it comes from
- P2: notes a surprising exclusion the thinker made, gives his reason, and expresses mild regret
- P3: introduces a second figure who applied the first thinker's method to the excluded material, with a mixed but mostly admiring assessment
- P4: explains the second figure's practical focus and his claim about how the material helps, including the role of parents
- P5: asks why the material helps on its own, gives the second figure's answer, and names his two assumptions
Step 2 · The kid passage
Grandpa's Big Wow and Aunt Rosa's Desserts
Grandpa's famous little cookbook explains the Big Wow: that jolt you feel when a dish surprises you. He says the Big Wow comes from our habit of expecting food to follow the rules, and then one bite breaks them.
You would expect Big Wows in desserts, with their wild colors and silly shapes. But he left desserts out completely. In a dessert, he said, anything can happen, so nothing feels out of place, and your taste buds never get into an argument. A pity.
Aunt Rosa, a school cook, used Grandpa's rules on desserts anyway, strictly and maybe too simply. She seems not to know the long history of how bakers have talked about sweets. Even so, her notebook is wonderful, packed with smart ideas about how kids eat.
Aunt Rosa mostly cooks for very picky eaters, so her work aims at kids who refuse new food and hide from the table. She says desserts speak right to those worries. And when parents bake the dessert with the child, it works even better, because the parents show that they approve of it.
But why would a dessert help by itself? Aunt Rosa says it is because kids figure out their own way forward: tasting, they think about what it hints about their fears. She counts on two things: that kids will taste in a helpful, hopeful way, and that Grandpa's rules describe what kids really taste. So the cook and the child taste alike, just with different words.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Comic Book Cure
In a small claims court, a library sued a reading coach named Delia Fern for using its comic books in her sessions with shy readers. The library's lawyer, Mr. Pratt, said comics were never meant for serious lessons. Mr. Whitfield stood for Ms. Fern. "Does my client know the long scholarly history of comics? No. But look at her results." He held up her notes. "She believes shy readers find their own answers inside the panels, and that when parents read along, the parents show they approve." Judge Ortega smiled. "I see gaps in her background reading. I also see real, useful insight into how children read." Case dismissed, with a compliment attached.