Passage Discussion

[rishisb]

Good day:

I have two questions about the passage about the Chinese-American poet, Wing Lum. My questions, however, are not asked by the LSAT.

In the first paragraph, the author says in lines 10-11 that the poet's writing does not model a multicultural paradise nor does it deal with traditional "Asian American literary themes." Instead, Wing Lum's work is to be "understood on its own terms." Then passage begins sentence 12 by saying that Lum’s work doesn’t offer a romanticized multicultural paradise. So far, so good. But, then in the very same sentence _ and this is what threw me off a bit"”the passage does NOT, does not likewise follow-through and deny that Lum’s work tackles familiar Asian-American themes. I had expected it to do. Instead, the second part of sentence says that Lum doesn’t explore themes at the "expense of retaining a local sensibility." It left me wondering what was the connection implying?

The transition/connection threw me off because I had expected the second part of the sentence to restate the fact that Lum doesn’t tackle familiar Asian themes: After all, the first part of the sentence reaffirmed a claim that the paragraph said earlier (i.e.: Lum doesn’t portray a multicultural paradise), so why shouldn’t the second part? I was thrown off by the lack of symmetry.

This leads to my questions:

1) Are such connections/transitions common on the LSAT?

2) And _ more importantly"”what’s the connection (or: what should we infer) when the author makes a claim that says two things, but then has a sentence that explicitly affirms the first part of the claim but doesn’t seem to explicitly affirm the second part? In this passage’s case, I guess, my question would be: What’s the connection between the claim that (i) Lum’s work should be read as not as showing a multicultural paradise and read as not as repeating familiar Asian themes and the claim (ii) that Lum doesn’t try to retain a local sensibility, even though he touches on the theme of family, etc.

I don’t know if I’ve made sense; please let me know if I can clarify things.

Many thanks in advance!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

You've presented some very interesting questions! Let me try my best to address them.

Q1) LSAT passages do not have to follow any logical/structural codes, so you should expect to see passages that don't have an efficient or "complete" structure. A similar situation -- you'll often see arguments presented, for which the two sides aren't exactly opposing.

However, I think that thinking about passages in terms of structure, and, more specifically, what you might "expect" is very very helpful -- often recognizing the "departure from the norm" is the key to understanding some of the more challenging parts of the LSAT.

Q2) First off -- I think your breakdown of the paragraph is very impressive! I really appreciate the attention to detail, and I imagine you are going to have a lot of success on the LSAT --

I think, if anything, your understanding is perhaps a bit more rigid than that which the author intended. In order for Lum to forge his own identity, it's not necessary for him to do the exact opposite of what tradition says, and there are certain themes -- such as family and identity -- that pretty much exist in all writing -- so it's unavoidable for there to be some overlap.

[rishisb]

Greetings, Mike:

Thank you for the encouraging words! LSAT students could use them at times.

Your reply was very helpful.

I am happy to learn that the passages/paragraphs/sentences do not necessarily follow a nice, predictable pattern. Knowing that helps ease my worry that I may be missing something when I sense that a sentence lacks the sort of pattern/symmetry that I pointed out in my earlier posting. The "fault" may not be mine, but LSAT’s itself!

Second, I really appreciate you pointing out that my reading was too rigid. It was too rigid because I was relying too much on my expectation that the second part of line 12 --- the one I said confused me"”should/would have repeated what it did in the sentence’s first part, i.e., re-deny something that was mentioned earlier in the paragraph. Again, I was wrong to be thrown off by the lack of symmetry.

I really appreciate your help, Mike

[alinanny]

Greetings, Mike:

Thank you for the encouraging words! LSAT students could use them at times.

Your reply was very helpful.

I am happy to learn that the passages/paragraphs/sentences do not necessarily follow a nice, predictable pattern. Knowing that helps ease my worry that I may be missing something when I sense that a sentence lacks the sort of pattern/symmetry that I pointed out in my earlier posting. The "fault" may not be mine, but LSAT’s itself!

Second, I really appreciate you pointing out that my reading was too rigid. It was too rigid because I was relying too much on my expectation that the second part of line 12 --- the one I said confused me"”should/would have repeated what it did in the sentence’s first part, i.e., re-deny something that was mentioned earlier in the paragraph. Again, I was wrong to be thrown off by the lack of symmetry.

I really appreciate your help, Mike

Hello!
Are you an English major by any chance? This type of analyzis are common of literature majors and I find that although it is a great way of disecting and analyzing literary work it can be problematic on the LSAT.
I think you should try to make sense of what you read and understand the fact that there are many patterns and structures we see over and over on the test but that are not necessarily present all the time.
In an attempt to answer your second question:
This is how I understood the first paragraph and if I am completely off, my excuse is that I am under the protection of literary ambiguity.
The author does touch both typical characteristics of Hawaiian literature in comparison to Wing Tek Lum. The first link you have already pointed out that he does not romanticize the notion of multicultural life in Hawaii the second one that typically authors will develop on the theme of Asian American generational conflict. The conflict of transitioning from one tradition to the other. Lum does not rely on that conflict in Expounding the Doubtful although he does touch some of the same subjects. The fact that he does not do one thing soes not mean that he would do the exact opposite and the author expands on this later on in the passage. The point is that Lum's usage of the family theme differes from the typical portray i other Asian American Literary work.
My point being that Lum can be totally opposite on one aspect and completely different on the other.
I hope this makes sense. LOL!

[timsportschuetz]

I usually only miss around 2 to 4 questions on every RC section... however, this passage gave me some SERIOUS issues! I should mention that I spent 9:45 minutes on the 6 questions and luckily only missed 1 out of 6. However, I have rarely felt this unsure and confused about a passage... Am I simply missing something here? I always read for structure and never get bogged down on details...

Anyone else feel the same?

[ling.75]

I usually only miss around 2 to 4 questions on every RC section... however, this passage gave me some SERIOUS issues! I should mention that I spent 9:45 minutes on the 6 questions and luckily only missed 1 out of 6. However, I have rarely felt this unsure and confused about a passage... Am I simply missing something here? I always read for structure and never get bogged down on details...

Anyone else feel the same?

This is very interesting. I am also very confused while reading the passage, but I managed to have a perfect score. I guess the right answers for this one are all pretty straightfoward, and the wrong ones are very obvious.

still, I felt frightened