Reading Comprehension · Humanities
PrepTest 152 · Section 3 · Passage 2
Questions 7–13
Before you start
Open PrepTest 152, Section 3 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 7–13, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: states a scholar's definition, introduces a category that seems not to fit, gives a detailed example of the misfit, and asks whether the definition can hold
- P2: summarizes the scholar's reply, names a weakness in that reply, and criticizes the scholar's approach with a suggestion for what should be studied first
Step 2 · The kid passage
Grandpa and the Wiggle Race
Grandpa says the classic board games of his childhood followed one rule: everything serves the race. Clear pieces move, turn by turn, toward the finish line. The dice, cards and spinners all exist to move pieces forward, so the game feels like a true race, a world of its own that still resembles a real run around a track. Gimmicks that make you notice the box were left out.
Party games are odd ducks. In the Wiggle Race, a turn starts with a dice roll, but then a card makes everyone stand up and dance a fancy pattern that has nothing to do with who is winning. During the dance, nobody races; the moves are about looking clever. So can a game that keeps flipping between racing and dancing fit Grandpa's rule?
Grandpa says yes. Party games, like tag, grew out of older backyard games, and their rules tell players to expect turns that switch between racing and dancing. Since players expect the switch, they accept it as a true race. I think Grandpa is stretching what a true race means. The dances are show-offs: they display skill, not move anyone forward. Even a player who knows it is a party game feels the jolt when the race stops. Playing is felt, not sorted. And since knowing what kind of game you are playing is learned, Grandpa should first study how players come to accept the dance breaks as normal before deciding which games count as true races.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Parade That Stopped
The town rule said every parade entry must keep the parade moving. Then the marching band stopped for ten minutes to spell its name in fancy formations. The parade committee argued, Your Honor, bands came from old county fairs, and everyone expects them to stop, so stopping counts as moving. Mr. Whitfield rose and tugged his suspenders. That stretches the word 'moving' like taffy, he said. The formations are there to show off, not to get anyone down the road. Even folks who expect it feel the parade grind to a halt. Before the committee calls a stop a kind of motion, it should ask how crowds learn to accept stops at all. The judge nodded. A word cannot mean its opposite.