#9 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Purpose/Function

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Question Classification. The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[lsatstudent2]

What is wrong with C?

[Jeff Wren]

Hi lsatstudent2,

This question asks why (i.e. for what purpose) the author refers to the Florentine guild of lawyers in the first paragraph.

The first step to answering this question is to return to the first paragraph in the passage, find the reference to the Florentine guild of lawyers, and figure out how it relates to the rest of the paragraph.

You want to do this before looking at the answer choices, as these answers in particular are designed to be rather vague and easily tempt students who haven't prephrased correctly.

The Florentine guild is mentioned in lines 14-16. The sentence reads "The Florentine guild of lawyers, for example, forbade its members to play any role in disciplinary proceedings against other guild members." The sentence itself indicates that this is being used as an example. To identify what this is exemplifying, just read the preceding sentence in lines 13-14 "Some (referring to advocates' professional organizations) even attempted to hobble efforts at enforcement."

So our prephrase should be something along the lines of "to show an example of advocates' professional organizations attempts to hobble efforts at enforcement." Answer B does this (using the word "illustrate" as a synonym for "to show an example of") and using "type of action referred to in the previous sentence" rather than actually describing that action, but otherwise Answer B perfectly captures how this example functions in the paragraph.

In short, Answer C is wrong because it doesn't correctly describe the function of this example and doesn't match our prephrase in any way. More specifically, where is the "universality of method" described in this answer? The sentence before the Florentine guild only mentions "some even attempted," not that it was universally attempted. The other problem with Answer C are the words "discussed throughout the paragraph." The fact that some advocates' professional organizations attempted to hobble efforts at enforcement, which is what the Florentine guild sentence shows an example of, is not discussed throughout the paragraph. It is only mentioned once.