#10 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Subject Perspective

[lsatstudent99966]

Noobie,

The passage contradicts (B). Look at Lines 20-25, which state that social scientist neglected dance because they thought dance wasn't subject to "rigorous modes of inquiry." That means they thought dance couldn't be reliably studied. Therefore, I would expect them to disagree with (B), which supports the opposite claim by stating that there is reliable data for studying dance. There are also other places in the passage, like around line 40, that indicate that her peers thought that data could not be reliably collected.

I think that you need to be careful when defining viewpoints. You should avoid describing viewpoints as overly negative or overly positive and should avoid using rhetorically charged descriptions, especially for a science passage. You may encounter extremes, but be sure you are, and that can help you avoid making leaps based on an incorrect description of tone or viewpoint.

I don't understand why line 40 also indicates that (B) is wrong for the following two reasons:

1. I assumed that the "colleagues" referred to in line 33-line 40 and the "peers" in line 22 were not exactly the same group of people (at least the passage didn't explicitly say so). Am I wrong?

2. I thought the "colleagues" in line 33-line 40 would agree with answer (B) because they advised Dunham not to get too close to the dances she was researching, and they also believe that data collection can and must be done from a detached position.

Can someone please clarify this? Thanks so much!

[Dana D]

Hey Lsatstudent,

1. I think you're correct here, also as a practice with specific reference questions such as this one I recommend only looking at the directed location in the passage for the answer. So for this question, I wouldn't look beyond the paragraph the quoted line is from.

2. Keeping in mind that we should just be looking at the specific reference of the passage, the quoted line says that the 'peers' (fellow scientists) didn't seem to value the study of dance and that most scientists couldn't understand dance techniques. If this was not a barrier to studying dance, the author likely would not have included it here in the passage. As it reads, this information is presented as yet another reason social scientists were not studying dance at this time. I would look no further in the passage than beyond this reference because again, this is a specific reference question, and also because it saves you time and mitigates the potential for confusion among answer choices. You add time to this question trying to identify whether the 'colleagues' from later in the passage are the same as the peers and what those colleagues would have said in comparison to the peers, etc.

Hope that helps!

[lsatstudent99966]

Hey Lsatstudent,

1. I think you're correct here, also as a practice with specific reference questions such as this one I recommend only looking at the directed location in the passage for the answer. So for this question, I wouldn't look beyond the paragraph the quoted line is from.

2. Keeping in mind that we should just be looking at the specific reference of the passage, the quoted line says that the 'peers' (fellow scientists) didn't seem to value the study of dance and that most scientists couldn't understand dance techniques. If this was not a barrier to studying dance, the author likely would not have included it here in the passage. As it reads, this information is presented as yet another reason social scientists were not studying dance at this time. I would look no further in the passage than beyond this reference because again, this is a specific reference question, and also because it saves you time and mitigates the potential for confusion among answer choices. You add time to this question trying to identify whether the 'colleagues' from later in the passage are the same as the peers and what those colleagues would have said in comparison to the peers, etc.

Hope that helps!

Thank you Dana! This is really helpful!