Main content
Course: LSAT > Unit 1
Lesson 10: Reading Comprehension - Worked Examples- Law passage overview | Cosmic Justice (paired passages)
- Main point | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Recognition | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Inferences about views | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Inferences about info | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Principles | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Analogies | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Law passage overview | Copyright
- Main point | Law passage | Copyright
- Purpose of reference | Law passage | Copyright
- Applying to new contexts | Law passage | Copyright
- Humanities passage overview | Music (paired passages)
- Main point 1 | Humanities passage | Music
- Main point 2 | Humanities passage | Music
- Recognition | Humanities passage | Music
- Inferences about views | Humanities passage | Music
- Principles and analogies | Humanities passage | Music
- Additional evidence | Humanities passage | Music
- Primary purpose | Humanities passage | Music
- Science passage overview | The Sun
- Recognition 1 | Science passage | The Sun
- Recognition 2 | Science passage | The Sun
- Organizing info | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about views 1 | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about views 2 | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about views 3 | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about info | Science passage | The Sun
- Social science passage overview | Wool
- Main point | Social science passage | Wool
- Recognition 1 | Social science passage | Wool
- Recognition 2 | Social science passage | Wool
- Inferences about info | Social science passage | Wool
- Inferences about attitudes | Social science passage | Wool
© 2024 Khan AcademyTerms of usePrivacy PolicyCookie Notice
Organizing info | Science passage | The Sun
Watch a demonstration of one way to answer an Organizing information question from a science passage on the LSAT. Created by Dave Travis.
Want to join the conversation?
- Honestly, none of the choices looked good.(12 votes)
- I went with E... Only because we later learned that the original data was incorrect in their interpretation; however, the data was not the misinformation (incorrect), it was its' interpretation (that was incorrect.) Through me for a runner there... I'm struggling with B though... I did not see how it was in part the "reactions" of fellow scientists. Again, where in the passage was it determined that scientists were discussing Payne's work? I see an inference derived from Einstein's work and textbooks being manufactured but don't see the key words "fellow scientists" mentioned... Maybe I'm completely missing it??(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] "The author's
discussion of nuclear fusion in the last paragraph
serves primarily to," Okay, so, dot dot dot. So what do we remember about
the nuclear fusion discussion in the last paragraph? It may make sense to just
go up and have a look at that last paragraph. Here it is. "Absent a generally accepted explanation "of how helium and hydrogen
could produce the sun's energy, "Payne's findings could
not easily override "her contemporaries' preconceptions. "We now know the sun's heat is generated "through nuclear fusion," then it explains fusion, "but this process was
so well charted today "that even elementary
physics textbooks discuss it. "was inadequately
understood in the 1920s." So when nuclear fusion
was finally understood, all of the sudden everybody
thought, oh my gosh, Cecilia Payne, you were right all along. Okay, so let's do this question again. What is the discussion doing? And you'll notice that I haven't
looked at the choices yet. I really wanna have an idea
of what I'm looking for, before I look at the choices. So what is that discussion doing? It's saying, look, this is why
nobody accepted her findings at the time, because people didn't
understand how the sun was gonna generate that heat, and then when nuclear fusion became clear, that that actually works, that actually was a thing, all of a sudden, we understand why, how that sun makes that heat, and everybody accepted
Cecilia Payne's findings and she was vindicated. Okay, so again, this is a
Purpose of the Paragraph. Purpose of the Element of the Paragraph. What is it doing? It's helping us to
understand why the scientists finally came around to
accepting her hypothesis, which is really the main
point of the whole passage. Here we go. Is it primarily to "illustrate the impact "of Payne's findings on a discipline, "related to, although distinct from, "the one in which she
ultimately made her mark?" I don't think that's
a different discipline and again, it doesn't match
what we're looking for. Helping us with the why
it finally came around that her findings were accepted. Okay, B. To "explain in part the reactions "of Payne's fellow scientists
to her interpretation "of the data that she analyzed." Uh, yeah, so it does explain
why they didn't understand how the sun made all that
heat, so that looks kinda good. Let's keep on going and see
if there's anything better. The purpose was primarily to "clarify." So one of the things I'm doing here is I'm actually turning all of these verbs into their infinitive form, and that helps me really
focus on the actual words that are in each choice, so I'm gonna do that here. So is the purpose to explain? Is it to illustrate? Is it to clarify? To show? Or to demonstrate? Okay, so, obviously,
those are all similar, but it really helps to just
lock into the structure of each choice. So let's look at B. Is the purpose of it to
"clarify an underlying reason "for Payne's rejection of
the 'iron' hypothesis?" No, it can't be a reason
for her rejection, because she didn't know about it, so that's wrong. D, is the purpose to
"show how Payne's findings "came ultimately to be modified "in light of later
scientific developments?" No, her findings were not modified. Okay, so that's wrong, too. E, to "demonstrate that Payne's
reliance on incorrect data "did not prevent her from
reaching a sound hypothesis." Okay, so incorrect data? No, she wasn't relying
on incorrect data at all, so that's definitely not right, but let's come back to B, and the reason that B is right is for a couple of reasons. One is that it's supported by the passage. Two, is that we made a decision earlier to look for the choice that matches what we thought it was gonna be. We are trusting ourselves. Trust. And the reason here, it
serves primarily to do, was to explain the scientist's position. And that's what we have here with B.