LSAT and Law School Admissions Forum

Get expert LSAT preparation and law school admissions advice from PowerScore Test Preparation.

 Administrator
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 8950
  • Joined: Feb 02, 2011
|
#81641
Complete Question Explanation

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!
 lathlee
  • Posts: 652
  • Joined: Apr 01, 2016
|
#44318
I had a conflicting moment choosing A or E. but I went with A) due to line 38 - 43 : Political theorist have been dismissive ...... the classical theory trivializes the political ends of movement participants, focusing rather on presumed psychological dysfunctions......

As you can see, the presence of this lines, which makes answer choice A) as more directly supported by the text than E). but i am wrong anyways. so What Am I not seeing here
 Francis O'Rourke
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 471
  • Joined: Mar 10, 2017
|
#44372
Hi Lathlee,

Question 22 asks us to identify the reason why the classical theory described in paragraphs one through three would not work well for us when applied to an election. In other words, what is one failure or limitation of the classical theory?

In paragraph four (lines 37-50), the author of this passage provides two reasons. The first reason will help us answer this question. to paraphrase lines 40-46, classical theory focuses on psychological dysfunctions rather than on the political ends of individuals in social movements

I would prephrase this answer by stating to myself "the theory wouldn't work because such an election might not have much to do with psychological issues or 'stimulus and response' paradigms." Answer choice (B) matches up well enough with my prephrase; it includes the unexpected phrasing "unusual condition." Otherwise, I like this one well enough to keep it for now.

Answer choice (A) states that the theory can't be applied to an election because the election may focus on personalities rather than on political issues. We already know that the classical theory ignores political issues, and we have no idea how it handles 'personalities,' so this answer does not describe a reason to avoid using the classical theory.

Answer choice (C) give us a reason to appropriately apply the classical theory. This is the opposite of the correct answer.

Answer choice (D) says that the classical theory fails if the election does not "entail momentous developments." We were given an example of classical theory applied to a momentous development (mid-20th century civil rights), but there is no reason to believe that the classical theory can only be applied to this sort of development.

Answer choice (E) states that the theory would not help us with the election, because the election actually entails multiple different social movements. We do not know how many different simultaneous social movements the classical theory can take into account, so there is no reason to think that it would fail because of the presence of more than one movement.

Answer choices (A) and (E) both sound pretty good at first. They use a lot of the same vocabulary as the author did and they stick to the topic of the passage for the most part. However, neither of these answer choices get at the reason that the author tells us classical theory can fail.

Although it uses confusing wording answer choice (B) is the only answer that gives us a reason that classical theory may fail to be applied appropriately.

Get the most out of your LSAT Prep Plus subscription.

Analyze and track your performance with our Testing and Analytics Package.