It is true that Wing Tek Lum emphasizes on reconciling the values of individual achievement with the desire to retain one's cultural traditions. However, my concern about (C) is that Wing Tek Lum does not mention how to deal with the value of enterprise. Could anyone help ?
Thanks.
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- cyruswhittaker
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Re: PT53,S4,Q2-Given the information
Notice that the phrase "values of individual achievement and enterprise" can be thought of as being representative of the "strong cultural emphasis in the US on individual drive and success" (lines 54-55).
Choice (C) is supported by this last sentence of the passage (lines 54-59); the author feels that it is important to maintain the reconciliation between this particular emphasis in the new culture (drive and success) with tradional culture.
Choice (C) is supported by this last sentence of the passage (lines 54-59); the author feels that it is important to maintain the reconciliation between this particular emphasis in the new culture (drive and success) with tradional culture.
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- shirando21
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q2
I was down to C and E, why is C better than E?
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- rinagoldfield
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q2
I understand why (C) feels like a difficult answer to bubble in. It isn’t a Cinderella (perfectly perfect) fit, but it is the only choice supported by the passage.
This inference question asks the reader to identify something that the poet Lum would agree with. According to the passage, Lum writes about the complex relationship between his traditional Chinese heritage and his current identity as an American. Lum feels simultaneously "connect[ed] and separat[ed] from the past;" his poetry embraces both "tradition" and "flux" (lines 22-23 and 31-34) .
(C) best reflects this dichotomy between transformation and tradition. The conflict between "the emphasis in the U.S. on individual drive and success" and the "homeland traditions" identified in the passage’s last paragraph (lines 55-56) well supports the divide between "individual enterprise and success" and "cultural traditions" described in (C).
Lum aims to forge a "healthy new sense of identity" out of these conflicts (line 58). While Lum acknowledges that retaining tradition as an immigrant is "difficult," the new identity he seeks to create is "complex" and integrates pieces of both contemporary and ancient culture (lines 41-46). Similarly, (C) describes a reconciliation between the opposing forces of individualism and tradition.
(E) temptingly describes both new identities and cultural traditions, but incorrectly connects them. Lum does not argue that new identities can be formed only at the expense of tradition, but rather seeks to acknowledge past and present simultaneously. (E) is contradicted.
(A) is out of scope.
(B) is unsupported.
(D) is out of scope.
This inference question asks the reader to identify something that the poet Lum would agree with. According to the passage, Lum writes about the complex relationship between his traditional Chinese heritage and his current identity as an American. Lum feels simultaneously "connect[ed] and separat[ed] from the past;" his poetry embraces both "tradition" and "flux" (lines 22-23 and 31-34) .
(C) best reflects this dichotomy between transformation and tradition. The conflict between "the emphasis in the U.S. on individual drive and success" and the "homeland traditions" identified in the passage’s last paragraph (lines 55-56) well supports the divide between "individual enterprise and success" and "cultural traditions" described in (C).
Lum aims to forge a "healthy new sense of identity" out of these conflicts (line 58). While Lum acknowledges that retaining tradition as an immigrant is "difficult," the new identity he seeks to create is "complex" and integrates pieces of both contemporary and ancient culture (lines 41-46). Similarly, (C) describes a reconciliation between the opposing forces of individualism and tradition.
(E) temptingly describes both new identities and cultural traditions, but incorrectly connects them. Lum does not argue that new identities can be formed only at the expense of tradition, but rather seeks to acknowledge past and present simultaneously. (E) is contradicted.
(A) is out of scope.
(B) is unsupported.
(D) is out of scope.
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- JorieB701
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Elle Woods
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Re: Q2
rinagoldfield Wrote:I understand why (C) feels like a difficult answer to bubble in. It isn’t a Cinderella (perfectly perfect) fit, but it is the only choice supported by the passage.
This inference question asks the reader to identify something that the poet Lum would agree with. According to the passage, Lum writes about the complex relationship between his traditional Chinese heritage and his current identity as an American. Lum feels simultaneously "connect[ed] and separat[ed] from the past;" his poetry embraces both "tradition" and "flux" (lines 22-23 and 31-34) .
(C) best reflects this dichotomy between transformation and tradition. The conflict between "the emphasis in the U.S. on individual drive and success" and the "homeland traditions" identified in the passage’s last paragraph (lines 55-56) well supports the divide between "individual enterprise and success" and "cultural traditions" described in (C).
Lum aims to forge a "healthy new sense of identity" out of these conflicts (line 58). While Lum acknowledges that retaining tradition as an immigrant is "difficult," the new identity he seeks to create is "complex" and integrates pieces of both contemporary and ancient culture (lines 41-46). Similarly, (C) describes a reconciliation between the opposing forces of individualism and tradition.
^^^ This kind of gets at something I’ve always been confused by. I’m new to Manhattan, I think they do this too, but I’ve often heard the advice that the overall point of the passage should guide your answers. As in, most questions can or should be answered with the main point in mind. I’m honestly not sure what this means or what it would look like in practice. Of course, there are ‘main point’ and ‘purpose’ RC questions that obviously want you to answer with the main idea in mind, but unless I’m mistaken, it is also meant to be advice for questions such as this?
I struggled with this question so I’m not 100% that this is what is being suggested above but it seems to be prescribing the same thing.
Is this advice, (using your understanding of the passage to guide your answers), just a fail safe? So, if you’re deciding between two attractive choices, you should choose the one that models more closely, the overall message of the passage? (Something that could lead you to the right answer in this question if you were debating between B and C - which I was).
Or is it actually the way these questions are meant to be answered? For instance, here we are asked what Lum would believe. Should I just be looking for something that somehow gets at his overall beliefs as described by the passage? Or should I often be looking for something that’s hyper specific to a random line in the passage that I might have glossed over about his work? Say, for example, an answer choice that looks something like, “it is typical of the Chinese culture to romanticize certain characteristics of other cultures.” (line 46ish) Because in this instance, it probably wouldn’t be super helpful to frame an answer with the overall point of the passage in mind.
I’m really not sure if my question makes sense but it’s an important one for me. Lol. Especially because I ended up getting this question wrong; Even though I didn’t exactly see support for B, C seemed too broad of a statement. When he said this, he was only talking about (I think) his culture. But C seems like they’re saying he would say this generally. Like this is just solid advice for anyone. I went with B, and I find that I frequently do this, because I read something like C, I get too afraid to commit over a quibble, and then I choose something ridiculous like B because I think, “It’s probably implied in the overall passage but I suck at reading comp so I must have missed it.”
Please help me.
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- ohthatpatrick
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Atticus Finch
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Re: Q2
I think you nailed it in several regards:
"Use Main Point to guide you"
- is a failsafe
- is a way to lean when you're down to two
- can easily be un-helpful if the question ends up testing a needle in a haystack detail
The two bigger skills you should be practicing to help you get questions like this right are
1. Predict an answer or predict a proof sentence / proof window, based on the question stem
2. Beware strong language in answers
When you read this question stem, do you know where in the passage to look for the answer? What lines will they be testing?
Sometimes, the keywords only appear once, so it's easy to find them and lock-in on what LSAT is testing.
Other times, the keyword appears many different times, so it's hard to pin down.
"Lum" is definitely found throughout the passage, but "what LUM would believe" is a looking for specific sentences where we learn about his point of view. We would scan the passage looking for anything resembling his beliefs, his philosophy, his ethos, his aesthetic.
The main point about his art / ethos is 9-13, the Most Valuable Sentence (it distinguishes Lum from other Asian American poetry).
He doesn't romanticize multicultural Hawaii. He pays attention to tradition but also wants to discover and retain a new local identity.
Nothing in the 2nd paragraph adds beyond this: it's still just an example of "think about traditional past but still attempt to discover/retain a new multicultural Hawaiian identity".
Most of the 3rd paragraph reinforces the same idea of "straddle an awareness of tradition with an attempt to forge a new identity", but also adds the caution (surely a reflection of what Lum believes) that we should recognize how US culture works AGAINST retaining your sense of tradition, so that this new identity we're trying to forge can still have a "healthy" amount of tradition.
So my upfront prediction for Q2 would be lines 9-13 or the last sentence of the passage.
My "strong language detector" would see the answers like this:
(A) "should" ... somewhat strong
(B) "necessary" .... incredibly strong
(C) "it is important" ... somewhat strong
(D) "it's continually in transition" ... pretty strong
(E) "you CANNOT do two things at the same time" .... incredibly strong
(B) and (E) would be the last two I would bother investigating, because they have such poisonously strong wording.
The 1st half of (D) seems like Lum, but the 2nd half is weird.
"Images in a poem", in (A), seems to come from line 50, but line 50 doesn't attribute any beliefs to Lum about whether poems should be explained.
(C) makes you ask yourself, "Did we ever talk about individual achievement and enterprise?"
If we hadn't already found the last line of the passage, we'd look there now and find more support for this answer than any other.
As for your concern about (C), it says "he's warning us that emphasizing drive/success can make retaining a sense (not "his sense" or "a Chinese sense") of identity difficult."
"Use Main Point to guide you"
- is a failsafe
- is a way to lean when you're down to two
- can easily be un-helpful if the question ends up testing a needle in a haystack detail
The two bigger skills you should be practicing to help you get questions like this right are
1. Predict an answer or predict a proof sentence / proof window, based on the question stem
2. Beware strong language in answers
When you read this question stem, do you know where in the passage to look for the answer? What lines will they be testing?
Sometimes, the keywords only appear once, so it's easy to find them and lock-in on what LSAT is testing.
Other times, the keyword appears many different times, so it's hard to pin down.
"Lum" is definitely found throughout the passage, but "what LUM would believe" is a looking for specific sentences where we learn about his point of view. We would scan the passage looking for anything resembling his beliefs, his philosophy, his ethos, his aesthetic.
The main point about his art / ethos is 9-13, the Most Valuable Sentence (it distinguishes Lum from other Asian American poetry).
He doesn't romanticize multicultural Hawaii. He pays attention to tradition but also wants to discover and retain a new local identity.
Nothing in the 2nd paragraph adds beyond this: it's still just an example of "think about traditional past but still attempt to discover/retain a new multicultural Hawaiian identity".
Most of the 3rd paragraph reinforces the same idea of "straddle an awareness of tradition with an attempt to forge a new identity", but also adds the caution (surely a reflection of what Lum believes) that we should recognize how US culture works AGAINST retaining your sense of tradition, so that this new identity we're trying to forge can still have a "healthy" amount of tradition.
So my upfront prediction for Q2 would be lines 9-13 or the last sentence of the passage.
My "strong language detector" would see the answers like this:
(A) "should" ... somewhat strong
(B) "necessary" .... incredibly strong
(C) "it is important" ... somewhat strong
(D) "it's continually in transition" ... pretty strong
(E) "you CANNOT do two things at the same time" .... incredibly strong
(B) and (E) would be the last two I would bother investigating, because they have such poisonously strong wording.
The 1st half of (D) seems like Lum, but the 2nd half is weird.
"Images in a poem", in (A), seems to come from line 50, but line 50 doesn't attribute any beliefs to Lum about whether poems should be explained.
(C) makes you ask yourself, "Did we ever talk about individual achievement and enterprise?"
If we hadn't already found the last line of the passage, we'd look there now and find more support for this answer than any other.
As for your concern about (C), it says "he's warning us that emphasizing drive/success can make retaining a sense (not "his sense" or "a Chinese sense") of identity difficult."
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