Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 118 · Section 2 · Passage 2
Questions 7–14
Before you start
Open PrepTest 118, Section 2 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 7–14, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: describes a long-respected tradition, then lists several critics' objections, ending with a doubt about its origin
- P2: the author dismisses the origin objection, answers the stronger objections by naming a lasting need, recommends keeping the core while changing the edges, and gives an example of such past reinterpretation
Step 2 · The kid passage
Grandpa's Castle Climb
For as long as anyone can remember, our family has played Castle Climb at every holiday. Its rules have been treated as rock solid, linking cousins across every generation and every city we have moved to. Until lately, not even the flashiest video games could shake it.
Now the cousins have complaints. Owen says its fixed rules leave no room for house rules. Nadia says it lets the oldest player run the table and ignore what the younger ones want. Marcus says it scores each player alone, which clashes with the team games everyone loves now. Frankie points out that it says nothing about timers or tablets. And Sharon has dug up a story that a neighbor, not Great-Great-Grandma, made it up, and that for years half the family played something else.
I say the who-made-it story can be set aside right away. Whoever first wrote the rules, each family that looks them over and decides they are fair becomes, in the way that counts, its inventor. More important, even the better complaints cannot erase what every player needs: to know they will get a fair turn. That core rule, which most of the complainers actually like, should stay, while the edges get updated, added to, or read in a new way. We already do this. The old rule "no playing after the candles are lit" probably once meant bedtime. Now we read it as "play where everyone can see the board," which still keeps the game fair.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Noon Bell
The town council wanted to scrap the old park bell. 'It is bossy, it ignores people who wear headphones, and nobody knows who hung it,' said their lawyer. Mr. Whitfield stood. 'Your Honor, who hung it does not matter. Every town that keeps ringing it makes it ours. The other complaints are fair questions, but they cannot erase what folks still need: a signal that lunch break has begun. Keep that core. Change the edges, maybe add a flashing light for the headphone crowd.' He smiled. 'We have done this before. The bell once called farmers in from the fields. Now it calls office workers to their sandwiches.' Judge Ito said, 'A tune-up, not a teardown. Bell stays.'