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Course: LSAT > Unit 1

Lesson 10: Reading Comprehension - Worked Examples

Inferences about attitudes | Social science passage | Wool

Watch a demonstration of one way to approach an Inferences about attitudes question on a social science reading passage on the LSAT. Created by Dave Travis.

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Video transcript

- [Narrator] Approval of which one of the following is implicit in the author's argument in the passage? So, the question is asking, what does the author approve of? So, the choices here are going to be things that we might have seen in the passage, or maybe things that we didn't see in the passage, but the right answer is gonna be a choice that says, oh yeah, the author approves of this thing and may not have said it explicitly, but it is implicit from other things that the author says that we understand that he or she approves of this thing. So does the author approve of competition between New Zealand's wool growers and producers of synthetics, like, oh yeah, I like that competition. Don't think so. B, changes in land use by New Zealand's farmers over the last several decades. No, the author spends most of his or her time making recommendations in order to save the wool industry. So, B's definitely not right. C, the farming practices of New Zealand's family farmers who grow wool. Okay, the author is saying that those, you know, small family farms don't, you know, necessarily use the most productive, the most efficient ways of farming. So, I'm not thinking that the author is all that supportive of those farming practices, but I'm not gonna cross out that because I also don't think the author would say bad things about the family farmers. But let's look at D and E. Efforts by New Zealand's wool-growing industry to increase the efficiency of wool processing. Okay that was mentioned, we need to find that and see whether the author has good things to say about that or maybe bad things to say about that. E, the farm management practices of the most profitable wool-growing farms in New Zealand. That looks really good, we can go up to the passage and prove that to ourselves. Pretty sure the author was very supportive of everybody in New Zealand adopting the farm manager practices of the most profitable wool-growing farms. So let's go up and find that. (scrolling) So here we have this paragraph here. The other side of family farmers, that we were wondering about family farmers, they are willing to receive a substantially lower return to maintain their lifestyle. Doesn't say anything negative, this is kind of like neutral. Oh here we are, okay, this goal of greater productivity can be readily achieved if the industry as a whole were to adopt the management and breeding practices of the country's leading wool growers. There's our answer. The author is recommending this, which means that the author must think it's a good thing. So, here's our answer, E. The last thing I wanna do here is to explain why D isn't right, so, a wool-growing industry increasing wool processing. Okay, here's where the industry is making efforts to improve the efficiency of wool processing. So does the author support that or not support that? The author is making a suggestion, or making a recommendation that would represent a shift away from those efforts. So the author doesn't approve of those efforts, would recommend, you know, using the investment in other ways. So that's how we know that we can cross out D.