Reading Comprehension · Social Science
PrepTest 137 · Section 1 · Passage 2
Questions 8–14
Before you start
Open PrepTest 137, Section 1 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 8–14, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: introduces a work, names its three threads, and says it pushes back on a habit of its field
- P2: first thread: says the work corrects popular beliefs, cites an outside warning, and gives hard facts that undercut a rosy picture
- P3: second thread: argues one person's story speaks for a wider group and regrets a gap in the field
- P4: third thread: describes the collaboration, notes the shaping into a familiar literary form, and quotes unshaped speech as an example
Step 2 · The kid passage
Gus, Speaking for Himself (Nadia reviews Owen's project)
Most lunch reports in our school newsletter love averages: most kids prefer tacos, the line takes nine minutes. Nobody gets a name. Owen's project braids three threads together, and in doing so it pushes back on that habit of counting crowds instead of listening to one person.
The first thread is about Gus, the youngest kid at the tiny school across the river, and it adds real facts to what we know about lunch there. It also fixes ideas we picked up without checking. We picture that school as a cozy spot where lunch is all fun. Aunt Rosa warns, "A picnic always looks perfect from across the park." Gus says otherwise: big kids grab the last pudding cup, the soup runs out on rainy days, and once he cried under a table for a whole recess.
The second thread is about Owen too. He is the youngest in his own family, and Gus's answers to "What is it like to be littlest in line?" seem to speak for little kids everywhere. It is a jolt to see how rarely our reports ask little kids about little kids.
The third thread is the talk itself. Owen and Gus traded questions and stories. Owen then poured it all into a shape readers know from bedtime reading. Real days do not come with a beginning, a middle and an end. Gus mostly says, "Then we ate. Then we went outside." The story took shape only as the two of them talked.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Gumdrop Factory
Everyone in town pictured the gumdrop factory as a sweet, happy place. Mr. Whitfield called a worker, Mr. Bloom. "Tell us about your day." "We made gumdrops. Then we went home." The jury blinked. Mr. Whitfield tried again. "What happened at the noon whistle?" Slowly the story came out: burned hands, a broken mixer, a coworker who quit in tears. Judge Ames leaned in. "Counselor, your questions are building that story with him. The shape is yours; the facts are his." "Yes, Your Honor. But without one real worker's voice, all we had were the sales charts, and the charts said everyone was smiling."