Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 114 · Section 3 · Passage 4
Questions 21–27
Before you start
Open PrepTest 114, Section 3 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 21–27, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: names a problem in a kind of training and proposes the author's solution
- P2: critiques the current approach, grants it one strength, says what real preparation needs, and argues the proposal does it better
- P3: explains why the proposed method is so well suited, coining a term for the skill it builds
- P4: heads off an objection that the proposal leads to the opposite extreme, rejects both extremes, and restates the payoff
Step 2 · The kid passage
Swap Day: Priya's Column for the School Paper
A big challenge for young soccer players, besides learning a hundred kicks, is staying tuned in to teammates during all that drilling. Kids who only do solo drills can forget that a game is played with people, and drills alone do not prepare them for the many surprises of a real match. So players need a new way to think about teammates. Swap Day scrimmages, where each kid plays a teammate's position, can help.
Our league teaches teamwork mostly with chalkboard diagrams. The diagrams make plays clear, and that clarity helps. Still, arrows on a board teach little about real teammates or about handling surprises. Real teamwork grows from seeing the field from many spots, because that is how you learn to care what a teammate needs. Swap Day readies players for surprises much better, because it drops them into real, varied game moments.
Playing someone else's spot builds what I call "field imagination." To keep up there, you must picture what that spot feels like, even though it is not yours, and treat it as worth caring about. You cannot cling to stiff rules like "defenders never cross midfield."
That does not mean tossing out positions, as in swarm ball, where everyone chases the ball on instinct and anything goes. Swarm ball helps a team as little as stiff positions do. Swap Day fixes the stiffness without sliding into swarm ball. And it gives what chalkboards lack: a real feel for teammates that makes every play more flexible.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Library Rulebook Trial
"Your Honor," Mr. Whitfield began, "the library's volunteer rulebook is clear, and clarity is good. But a rulebook alone never taught a volunteer how a lost, tired visitor feels. Role-play does. Volunteers take turns being the visitor, so they see the desk from the other side." Ms. Pell jumped up. "So he wants to throw out the rules and let volunteers do whatever feels right!" "Not at all," said Mr. Whitfield, adjusting his suspenders. "Anything-goes is as useless as rule-bound. Role-play cures the stiffness without tossing the rules. It helps volunteers use them with understanding." Judge Maple nodded slowly. "A middle path, with the rulebook's good part kept. Motion granted."