Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 122 · Section 3 · Passage 3
Questions 14–20
Before you start
Open PrepTest 122, Section 3 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 14–20, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: admits the evidence is scattered, then states the author's thesis that it still supports, correcting a commonly assumed starting date
- P2: argues that the very form of the evidence reveals something, backed by an example from an early source
- P3: adds more evidence that the group's role was broader than a narrower job
- P4: adds a last line of evidence of that same type and notes how casually it was presented
Step 2 · The kid passage
The Little Umpires of Maple Street School
Records of little-kid umpires at Maple Street School's old recess games are patchy: a few lines in old class newsletters, some notes in teachers' planners, and about thirty chalk names on the shed wall. Still, the scraps add up. They show that second graders really did umpire games long ago. So the story does not start last spring, when Lulu became the first little kid to win the Golden Whistle, or even in 2019, when the club logbook first officially listed a second grader as umpire.
The kind of scraps tells us something too. Nobody ever wrote "Wow, a little umpire!" The mentions are casual, so little umpires were probably few but ordinary. In the oldest newsletter, a fifth grader argues that recess jobs should go by skill, not age, and notes that some second graders, like some fifth graders, make sharp umpires while others don't. He isn't campaigning for little umpires. He is pointing at something everyone already saw.
Also, these kids did more than fetch balls. The school used separate words, "fetcher" and "umpire," and the shed names are listed as umpires. One plaque says, "You kept every game on the field fair." Another calls a kid "the judge of all recess."
Finally, the old rulebook binders quote rulings written by big and little umpires side by side, hopping back and forth, with no note about who was small.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Left-Handed Chess Champs
In the fictional town of Puddleford, a club claimed left-handed players were never allowed in its chess league before 1990. Mr. Whitfield snapped his suspenders. "Your Honor, the old records are scraps: a few newspaper lines, some scorecards, a trophy or two. But look how they mention lefties. Nobody says 'Gasp, a lefty!' One old letter argues that seats should go by skill and notes that some lefties, like some righties, play brilliantly. The writer is not pleading for lefties. He is pointing at what everyone already knew." He held up a trophy: "Champion of the whole league." The judge nodded. "Casual mentions mean ordinary, not forbidden. And a league champion was no mere scorekeeper."