Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 136 · Section 3 · Passage 2
Questions 7–12
Before you start
Open PrepTest 136, Section 3 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 7–12, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- Passage A, P1: the author, a member of a field who teaches it, criticizes how the field's scholarly writing is taught and why it fails students
- Passage A, P2: describes a recent fad meant to fix the problem, lists specific examples of it, and says it changed little
- Passage B, P1: a different author, a member and teacher of a second field, says teaching the field means teaching its writing and describes that writing's strict rules
- Passage B, P2: says practitioners often write badly, suggests a current fad might help, and points to what the usual form leaves out
- Passage B, P3: predicts the fad may change words more than practice, then ends on cautious hope
Step 2 · The kid passage
Two Teachers on Dry Writing
Passage A (Aunt Rosa, a baker who teaches baking class): Eaters, like bakers, love a surprise. Yet the recipe cards of our trade leave nothing to wonder about. I saw how bad this is when I began teaching. Bakers make students copy cards that are nothing but grams and minutes, just as their own teachers did. Such cards treat a cake as a math problem, and they cannot reach students who want to feel why grandma baked it. Lately bakers have discovered 'recipe stories.' It is a craze. The Town Bake Fair picked 'Baking with Feeling' as its theme, and bakers simply renamed their cards 'Grandma's Story Scones' and 'A Tale of Two Tarts.' The cards were still grams and minutes. At the fair, almost nobody made anyone laugh or cry.
Passage B (Ms. Rivera, a scientist who teaches science): Lab reports are the heart of science class, so whether we like it or not, we scientists who teach end up teaching kids how scientists write. Our rules say a report must march in a straight line: no side trips, no jokes, no 'I.' Kids write the way they see other reports written, and too often they write badly. Maybe the new craze for 'science stories' could help. Every experiment really holds a story: the spilled vinegar, the hopeful guess, the gasp when the volcano finally foams. But the report form cuts all that out, so kids end up pretending it never happened. Maybe the craze will only add new words to our posters without changing how our future fellow scientists write. Still, just knowing stories matter could help.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Silent Zoo Signs
A zoo sign-painter, Ms. Dell, was sued by the zoo for breaking its sign rules. 'The rules say weight, diet, habitat. Nothing else,' said the zoo's lawyer. Mr. Whitfield stood, suspenders creaking. 'Your Honor, my client did list weight, diet and habitat. She also wrote that the old tortoise here waited three winters for a mate. Visitors cried. Then they donated.' He held up a museum plaque from across town. 'Museums have the same rule, and the same problem. Their plaques list dates and nothing else. Both fields strip out the story, and both lose their visitors.' The judge paused. 'Counsel, the rule was followed. Something extra was added.' 'And it worked,' said Mr. Whitfield. Case dismissed.