Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 142 · Section 3 · Passage 1
Questions 1–8
Before you start
Open PrepTest 142, Section 3 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 1–8, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: notes that experts ignore one kind of creative work and poses the question of why
- P2: describes how a well-respected art form is made and how it changes over time
- P3: shows the overlooked work is made the same way and can move people just as deeply, so the two are equals
- P4: offers one possible reason for the neglect, blaming a business practice, and closes with the author's regret
Step 2 · The kid passage
Why Don't Kites Get a Ribbon?
Every spring, the judges at our school art fair spend hours picking the best drawing. So why does nobody judge kites with the same care? Why isn't a great kite treated like great art? I have never seen one judge stroll over to the kite table to study, say, the Red Sparrow, the 1987 kite Grandpa built from bamboo and tissue paper.
Kites and drawings are really cousins. An artist mixes crayon, chalk and paint. She lays down a light sketch, colors on top, and adds a shiny coat last. Over the years the colors fade, so the drawing keeps changing.
In the same way, the "string wizards" who build great kites mix sticks, paper, glue and tails with care. Up in the air, each part moves in its own way: the tail swishes, the wings shiver, the kite dips and climbs as the wind shifts. A great builder can make a world in the sky as strong as any picture. And when a kite brings back a summer day at the beach from long ago, the builder is doing the very same job a painter does.
Maybe great kites get ignored because most kites now come from one giant toy company. Its penny-pinchers quietly swap the old bamboo sticks for cheap plastic ones that only sort of act the same, just to earn more. They never tell anyone; they figure kids won't notice. So kite art is now buried under toy ads and price tags. What a shame.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Sandcastle Prize
Judge Patel tapped her gavel. "Mr. Whitfield, why should the town art prize go to a sandcastle?" Mr. Whitfield snapped his suspenders. "Your Honor, my question is simple: why does nobody judge sandcastles like statues? A sculptor carves stone layer by layer. A sand builder packs, wets and carves sand the very same way. Both can make you remember a day you thought you forgot." He paused. "So why the cold shoulder? Perhaps because a bucket company now sells cheap plastic molds and calls the results castles, without telling anyone the real craft is gone." The judge nodded slowly. "So first you asked why, then you showed it was a fair question, then you offered a possible answer." "Exactly, Your Honor. Question, case, answer."