Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 141 · Section 3 · Passage 2
Questions 8–14
Before you start
Open PrepTest 141, Section 3 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 person's notable innovation in a field, notes the borrowed technique's long history elsewhere, and credits her two kinds of training
- P2: gives background on why her research area was neglected before her, offering two reasons
- P3: describes her research and how her approach broke from the advice of colleagues, with the author siding against their view, and what her approach let her do
- P4: describes her method for turning research into new work and concludes with its lasting importance and later influence
Step 2 · The kid passage
Aunt Rosa and the Hidden Move
One of the biggest changes at the Elm Street Game Club came from Aunt Rosa, who brought in the hidden move, a trick where one player secretly plans a turn while the board keeps going. Club games used it only lately, but riverboat card games had used it for ages. Rosa pulled it off because she was trained both as a game historian and as a puzzle designer.
Before Rosa, the town's history society ignored games. Members wanted topics the other members would call serious and careful. Also, no historian played games well enough to understand them, and the best players knew nothing about history.
In 1990 Rosa began studying riverboat games, curious about the older harbor games they grew from. Fellow historians told her to stay back and just watch. The games ran past midnight, and they believed (a silly idea, we now know) that good notes can only come from standing totally apart. Rosa loved playing, so she joined in. After months of play, she understood the games as part of riverboat life, and she learned them so well that she could teach them and mix them into new games.
Later Rosa built a study-to-shelf method blending riverboat tricks with the city puzzle styles she had learned. Her games were some of the earliest to end the club's habit of leaving riverboat games out. Thanks to her, riverboat gaming is now a respected hobby, paving the way for groups such as the Lantern Street Game Night.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Reporter Who Got Wet
Judge Okafor peered down. "Counsel, your objection?" The opposing lawyer stood. "Your Honor, this reporter sailed with the fishing crews for a year. A proper observer stays on the dock and keeps clean hands." Mr. Whitfield tugged his suspenders. "Clean hands, wrong notes. My witness learned to tie every knot herself. That is why she could explain them, teach them, and help the town's new boat school get started." The judge nodded. "The idea that anyone can watch from perfect distance is a fairy tale. Objection overruled." Mr. Whitfield winked at the jury: "Two skills, joined in, built something new. That is the whole story."