LSAC LSAT-TEST Exam Preparation Materials

The current theory about earthquakes holds that they are caused by adjoining plates of rock sliding past each other; the plates are pressed together until powerful forces overcome the resistance. As plausible as this may sound, at least one thing remains mysterious on this theory. The overcoming of such resistance should create enormous amounts of heat. But so far no increases in temperature unrelated to weather have been detected following earthquakes.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the argument?

A. No increases in temperature have been detected following earthquakes.

B. The current theory does not fully explain earthquake data.

C. No one will ever be sure what the true cause of earthquakes is.

D. Earthquakes produce enormous amounts of heat that have so far gone undetected.

E. Contrary to the current theory, earthquakes are not caused by adjoining plates of rock sliding past one another.

The organizer of a reading club will select at least five and at most six works from a group of nine works.

The group consists of three French novels, three Russian novels, two French plays, and one Russian play.

The organizer's selection of works must conform to the following requirements:

No more than four French works are selected.

At least three but no more than four novels are selected.

At least as many French novels as Russian novels are selected.

If both French plays are selected, then the Russian play is not selected.

Which one of the following could be the organizer's selection of works?

A. one French novel, two Russian novels, one French play, one Russian play

B. two French novels, one Russian novel, two French plays, one Russian play

C. two French novels, two Russian novels, two French plays

D. three French novels, one Russian novel, two French plays

E. three French novels, two Russian novels, one Russian play

Many educators in Canada and the United States advocate multicultural education as a means of achieving multicultural understanding. There are, however, a variety of proposals as to what multicultural education should consist of. The most modest of these proposals holds that schools and colleges should promote multicultural understanding by teaching about other cultures, teaching which proceeds from within the context of the majority culture. Students should learn about other cultures, proponents claim, but examination of these cultures should operate with the methods, perspectives, and values of the majority culture. These values are typically those of liberalism: democracy, tolerance, and equality of persons.

Critics of this first proposal have argued that genuine understanding of other cultures is impossible if the study of other cultures is refracted through the distorting lens of the majority culture's perspective. Not all cultures share liberal values. Their value systems have arisen in often radically different social and historical circumstances, and thus, these critics argue, cannot be understood and adequately appreciated if one insists on approaching them solely from within the majority culture's perspective.

In response to this objection, a second version of multicultural education has developed that differs from the first in holding that multicultural education ought to adopt a neutral stance with respect to the value differences among cultures. The values of one culture should not be standards by which others are judged; each culture should be taken on its own terms. However, the methods of examination, study, and explanation of cultures in this second version of multicultural education are still identifiably Western. They are the methods of anthropology, social psychology, political science, and sociology. They are, that is, methods which derive from the Western scientific perspective and heritage.

Critics of this second form of multicultural education argue as follows: The Western scientific heritage is founded upon an epistemological system that prizes the objective over the subjective, the logical over the intuitive, and the empirically verifiable over the mystical. The methods of social-scientific examination of cultures are thus already value laden; the choice to examine and understand other cultures by these methods involves a commitment to certain values such as objectivity. Thus, the second version of multicultural education is not essentially different from the first. Scientific discourse has a privileged place in Western cultures, but the discourses of myth, tradition, religion, and mystical insight are often the dominant forms of thought and language of non-Western cultures. To insist on trying to understand nonscientific cultures by the methods of Western science is not only distorting, but is also an expression of an attempt to maintain a Eurocentric cultural chauvinism: the chauvinism of science. According to this objection, it is only by adopting the (often nonscientific) perspectives and methods of the cultures studied that real understanding can be achieved.

Which one of the following most accurately states the main point of the passage?

A. Proponents of two proposals for promoting multicultural understanding disagree about both the goal of multicultural education and the means for achieving this goal.

B. Proponents of two proposals for promoting multicultural understanding claim that education should be founded upon an epistemological system that recognizes the importance of the subjective, the intuitive, and the mystical.

C. Proponents of two proposals for promoting multicultural understanding claim that it is not enough to refrain from judging non-Western cultures if the methods used to study these cultures are themselves Western.

D. Critics of two proposals for promoting multicultural understanding disagree about the extent to which a culture's values are a product of its social and historical circumstances.

E. Critics of two proposals for promoting multicultural understanding claim these proposals are not value neutral and are therefore unable to yield a genuine understanding of cultures with a different value system.