Passage - General Questions

[lathlee]

Hi. I keep getting my ass kicked for this RC (only thing it makes me feel better is this is one of most difficult RC selected ever by Powerscore) ; can you guys do a VIEWSTAMP so i can compare mine to you guys and see where I am not doing correctly.

[Adam Tyson]

I'll give it a go, lathlee!

Viewpoints: just that of the author, who proposes that maize is influential and offers a scientific explanation for why it is so bountiful

Structure: The author first introduces a phenomenon, offers an explanation for it, raises a question about the explanation, and offers a scientific answer to that question

Tone: Primarily neutral and academic, neither positive nor negative but merely informative (although perhaps a little impressed)

Arguments: You could say that the entire passage is an argument in support of what makes maize and a few other plants so bountiful in comparison to others, but it is mostly a neutral, non-argumentative passage, so I would say "none"

Main Point: Maize and a few other so-called C-4 plants are more bountiful than others because of the way they separate oxygen from rubisco. If you prefer, a simpler Main Point answer is "maize is so successful because science."

How does that match up to yours? Feel free to share!

[JocelynL]

Viewpoint - author's casual explanation for corn reshaping/ influencing cultures

Structure - (paragraph 1) Introduces corn as reshaping every culture because of its bountiful nature, presents a hypothetical for why, (paragraph 2) describes production process that answers hypothetical question, (paragraph 3) explains how similar process by other plants don't produce same bountiful result.

Tone - neutral

Argument - I had nothing for this one

MP - Maize is bountiful

Can someone please help evaluate my VIEWSTAMP method for this passage? I feel like my structure portion is too detail and missing some of the bigger picture element's Adam mentioned.

Also, when there is an argument present in a stimulus, is it more often than not, also the main point?

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Jocelyn,

This looks good overall!

The difference you're noticing between your Structure section and Adam's is a difference between taking a more high-level/abstract descriptive approach, focused on the author's argumentative purpose, versus taking a content-oriented descriptive approach (that gets down in the weeds of the specific subject matter, as you're doing). I think students should generally aim to reproduce structure maps more in line with Adam's approach. There are a few reasons for this: (1) it will help a ton with paragraph purpose questions, and organization questions, which usually require a higher-level descriptive approach to the logical purpose of the paragraph or section of the passage; (2) it will keep you focused on the forest instead of the trees, forcing you to zero in on what the LSAT cares about: what is the author arguing and how does she get there from a reasoning perspective?; (3) if you want to find the content corresponding to the descriptions you give, you can easily use notations to mark off things like the "phenomenon," the "explanation," the "question about the explanation," etc.

To do what Adam is doing, ask yourself with each paragraph, "what did the author do (argumentatively) in this paragraph?" Use descriptions similar to those you'd find in the answers to a Method of Reasoning question (introducing the background; stating a hypothesis; giving evidence of a hypothesis; stating an explanation; answering a question; contrasting two approaches, etc.).

In a high level sense, the Argument of a passage can be thought of as the author's main point (corresponding to the conclusion of an LR argument) and the evidence the author gives for that main point (corresponding to the author's premises in an LR argument). But the "Arguments" element of VIEWSTAMP really should focus you more on when you see smaller, LR-style arguments found within specific parts of paragraphs of the passage. For example, check out the Gray Marketing passage from PT 8, June 1993, Passage 2. In the third paragraph of that passage you see the trademark owners' specific argument against gray marketing, with a couple of supporting premises. It's that kind of small-scale argument (within the flow of a passage) that we want you to notice, in addition to the authors' overall main point and evidence. You don't see those in this passage, which is why both you and Adam left that section more of a blank here.

I hope this helps!