Unplugged Practice Test / Explanations / Reading Comprehension, Passage 1

Unplugged Practice Test: Reading Comprehension, Passage 1

Reading Comprehension · Passage 1 of 4 · Questions 1 to 7

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Passage 1 carries 7 questions. The answers, in order: question 1 is (A), question 2 is (C), question 3 is (E), question 4 is (B), question 5 is (D), question 6 is (A), question 7 is (C). Each explanation below points to the exact words in the passage that settle it.

Key takeaways

Read for the author's position and each paragraph's job before the questions; most wrong answers on this passage misassign a view to the wrong speaker or overstate a claim.
Every credited answer below is settled by specific words in the passage, quoted in the walkthrough.
Every passage on this test is original, and Steve checked every one himself before release.

The passage

In Halvern, a farming cooperative that drains protected marshland without a permit answers for it at a public hearing before the district land commission. The practice is long settled, but a group of land use scholars now argues that such matters belong instead in private compliance accords negotiated with the agency. Accords, they observe, resemble hearings: both bind the cooperative, both require it to restore what it drained, and both leave a record the parties must live with. Accords, however, are better at fixing how much acreage is owed, since negotiators are chosen for their command of soil surveys. A hearing also keeps a cooperative in open proceedings for years, so its total cost runs far above the worth of the drained ground. That excess, the scholars say, is pure waste, and cooperatives pass it to members as higher dues. Accords are less costly for the agency as well, since one negotiator closes in weeks a matter that would otherwise occupy a panel for years.

Even if it is the costlier forum, the public hearing is the stronger safeguard. Its powers matter in themselves. The commission can order a cooperative to open its pumping logs and can summon unwilling witnesses, and that prospect discourages unlawful digging before a complaint is filed. An accord's reach is narrower, because a negotiation begins only when a neighboring landholder has noticed the loss and can pay for the survey that documents it. Most important, the central work of public enforcement is to announce, in decisions anyone may read, what a cooperative owes the marsh and its neighbors. An accord, negotiated behind closed doors, cannot do that work.

Other scholars have no quarrel with the commission but contend that the proper respondents are the pump operators and field supervisors who cut the ditches, not their cooperatives. Individuals, they say, answer more readily to a threatened order, since a finding against one can cost him his permit and his living. They add that an order against a cooperative falls on people who cut no ditches: its members, its lenders, hired crews who may be let go, and the households that buy its produce at a higher price, who should not have to carry it. This approach is mistaken too. Cooperatives split drainage decisions among seasonal crews and contract haulers, so that often no individual answerable for a lost marsh can be named. Worse, a cooperative will frequently find it less costly to put forward and pay off a junior supervisor than to change how it drains.

The surest way to make cooperatives drain lawfully is to hold the cooperatives themselves answerable before the commission. An order reaches members as well as managers and crews: because it lowers what a membership in the cooperative is worth, it gives members reason to press the cooperative's council for sounder practice. And the argument that members, crews, and households deserve economic shelter carries less weight than the public stake in marshes that hold floodwater back from towns downstream.

Steve's walkthrough, question by question

Question 1: Main Point

1. Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

(A)Although answering at public hearings has drawn criticism, it remains the surest way to keep cooperatives from draining marshland unlawfully.
(B)Private accords would cost less than hearings, but few neighbors both notice a drainage loss and can pay for the survey a negotiation requires.
(C)Neither private accords nor orders against individual pump operators can do anything to curb the unlawful draining of marshland.
(D)The surest way to protect marshland is to bring proceedings before the commission against cooperatives and individual operators alike.
(E)Pursuing individual operators is preferable to private accords, since accords fail to state publicly what a cooperative owes the marsh.

The answer is (A). The passage weighs private accords and orders against individual operators against the public hearing, then closes on one line: the surest way to make cooperatives drain lawfully is to hold the cooperatives themselves answerable before the commission.

AWhy (A) is correct

The passage weighs private accords and orders against individual operators against the public hearing, then closes on one line: the surest way to make cooperatives drain lawfully is to hold the cooperatives themselves answerable before the commission. Everything before that, the cost of hearings, the narrower reach of an accord, the trouble naming an individual crew member, builds toward that close. (A) states it plainly: hearings have drawn criticism, but they remain the surest way to keep cooperatives from draining marshland unlawfully.

Why the other answers are wrong

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) gives the scholars' case for accords, the position the second paragraph argues against, not the passage's own point.

CWhy (C) is wrong

(C) overstates the passage's claim; the author never says accords or individual orders do nothing, only that hearings against cooperatives work better.

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) adds individual operators alongside cooperatives, but the fourth paragraph argues cooperatives, not individuals, should answer, so this misstates the target.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) prefers pursuing individual operators over accords, a position the third and fourth paragraphs reject in favor of holding the cooperative itself answerable.

Question 2: Function

2. The author refers to the splitting of drainage decisions among seasonal crews and contract haulers primarily in order to

(A)account for why a cooperative might prefer to put forward and pay off a junior supervisor
(B)restate the grounds on which some scholars claim individuals answer more readily to a threatened order
(C)show that the proposal to pursue individual operators rather than cooperatives would often be unworkable
(D)emphasize how heavily an order against a cooperative falls on people who cut no ditches
(E)suggest that the commission's critics have mistaken what an enforcement order legally settles

The answer is (C). The line about splitting drainage decisions among seasonal crews and contract haulers sits inside the paragraph that answers the scholars who want individual operators, not cooperatives, held answerable before the commission. It shows that responsibility for a drained marsh often can't be pinned on one person, since decisions are spread across rotating crews and hired haulers.

CWhy (C) is correct

The line about splitting drainage decisions among seasonal crews and contract haulers sits inside the paragraph that answers the scholars who want individual operators, not cooperatives, held answerable before the commission. It shows that responsibility for a drained marsh often can't be pinned on one person, since decisions are spread across rotating crews and hired haulers. That directly undercuts the individual-liability proposal by showing it would often have no one to name, which is what (C) captures.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) is the next, separate point about a cooperative finding it cheaper to put forward and pay off a junior supervisor, a different reason from the one this line supplies.

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) belongs to the scholars' own claim that individuals answer more readily to a threatened order, and this line actually cuts against that proposal rather than restating it.

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) is the economic-hardship argument about members, lenders, crews, and households, a separate strand of the same rebuttal, not the job of this particular sentence.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) invents a claim about what an enforcement order legally settles that the passage never makes here.

Question 3: Inference

3. The passage indicates that the scholars who favor private accords over public hearings believe which one of the following?

(A)Orders from the commission give individual pump operators no reason at all to dig lawfully.
(B)Public hearings extend more procedural protection to the parties than they ought to extend.
(C)Announcing publicly what a cooperative owes is not the central work of public enforcement.
(D)An accord seldom affects a cooperative's standing among the households that farm beside it.
(E)The expense a public hearing imposes on a cooperative is, in most cases, greater than it should be.

The answer is (E). (E) is what the passage attributes to the scholars who favor accords. They argue a hearing keeps a cooperative in open proceedings for years, so its total cost runs far above the worth of the drained ground, and they call that excess pure waste that cooperatives pass on to members as higher dues.

EWhy (E) is correct

(E) is what the passage attributes to the scholars who favor accords. They argue a hearing keeps a cooperative in open proceedings for years, so its total cost runs far above the worth of the drained ground, and they call that excess pure waste that cooperatives pass on to members as higher dues. Calling a hearing's cost pure waste is another way of saying the expense it imposes is greater than it should be.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) nobody in the passage holds that commission orders give individual operators no reason at all to dig lawfully; the scholars who would name individuals as respondents say close to the opposite, that individuals answer more readily to a threatened order.

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) the accords scholars talk about a hearing's cost, not about it granting too much procedural protection, so this misplaces their complaint.

CWhy (C) is wrong

(C) denies what the author asserts, that announcing publicly what a cooperative owes is the central work of public enforcement, and that line is the author's case for hearings rather than a belief the accords scholars are given.

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) the accords scholars are never given a view on how an accord affects a cooperative's standing among the households farming beside it; the point that a negotiation begins only once a neighboring landholder notices the loss and can pay for the survey is the author's own, made in the second paragraph against accords.

Question 4: Detail

4. The author of the passage explicitly claims which one of the following?

(A)An accord assigns a more accurate figure to the acreage a cooperative owes.
(B)A negotiation over unlawful drainage begins only when a neighboring landholder has noticed the loss.
(C)Restoring what was drained is the chief aim of both accords and public hearings.
(D)Individual pump operators are more easily held back from unlawful digging than the cooperatives that employ them.
(E)Hired crews stand to lose as much from a negotiated accord as from an order of the commission.

The answer is (B). The stem asks what the author explicitly claims, so any choice that only reports someone else's position falls away no matter how reasonable it sounds. In the second paragraph the author writes that an accord's reach is narrower than a hearing's because a negotiation begins only when a neighboring landholder has noticed the loss and can pay for the survey documenting it.

BWhy (B) is correct

The stem asks what the author explicitly claims, so any choice that only reports someone else's position falls away no matter how reasonable it sounds. In the second paragraph the author writes that an accord's reach is narrower than a hearing's because a negotiation begins only when a neighboring landholder has noticed the loss and can pay for the survey documenting it. That's the author's own point, not a summary of what the scholars argue, so it survives.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) that accords set a more accurate acreage figure comes from the land use scholars in the first paragraph, not from the author's own voice.

CWhy (C) is wrong

(C) that restoration is the chief aim of both accords and hearings is again the scholars' point, one of the shared features they list to argue accords and hearings resemble each other.

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) The second group of scholars is the one holding that individual pump operators are easier to hold back than their cooperatives, a view the author goes on to dispute.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) claims hired crews lose as much from an accord as from a commission order, a comparison the passage never draws; the passage only notes crews as one group that could be let go under an order against the cooperative.

Question 5: Inference

5. It can be inferred that those who would pursue individual operators rather than cooperatives hold that

(A)members generally lack the power to push a cooperative toward sounder drainage practice
(B)a threatened order is the only thing that gives a pump operator reason to dig lawfully
(C)a case against a cooperative is harder to prove before the commission than a case against an operator
(D)it is unfair that households should pay, in the price of produce, for a cooperative's unlawful drainage
(E)unlawful drainage seldom harms any neighbor who can afford to pursue a complaint

The answer is (D). The third paragraph lays out this camp's case: an order against a cooperative falls on people who cut no ditches at all, its members, its lenders, crews who might get let go, and the households that end up paying more for produce.

DWhy (D) is correct

The third paragraph lays out this camp's case: an order against a cooperative falls on people who cut no ditches at all, its members, its lenders, crews who might get let go, and the households that end up paying more for produce. Their listed complaint is that those households, and the others named, shouldn't have to absorb the cost of drainage they didn't cause. That's the belief the inference asks for: charging the cooperative pushes the expense onto buyers who did nothing wrong, and that's unjust.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) puts a claim about member power on the wrong speaker: the passage takes up that subject only in the last paragraph, where the author argues an order does give members reason to press the cooperative's council, and this camp is never credited with a view on it.

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) Too strong: this camp says individuals answer more readily to a threatened order, not that a threatened order is the only thing that could ever make an operator dig lawfully.

CWhy (C) is wrong

(C) They never argue that proving a case against a cooperative is harder than proving one against an operator; naming an answerable individual is their concern, not proof difficulty.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) The point about neighbors lacking the means to pursue a complaint belongs to the discussion of accords earlier, not to this camp's reasoning.

Question 6: Analogy/Application

6. Consider a cooperative that has for years drained protected marshland without a permit alongside a large town. Which one of the following would most closely accord with the author's account of how such conduct is best addressed?

(A)After the commission enters an order against the cooperative, several of its largest members press its council to adopt stricter review of drainage plans.
(B)To strengthen a compliance accord with the cooperative, the agency asks lawmakers to give its negotiators the disclosure powers the commission holds.
(C)Neighboring landholders file a complaint against the cooperative's largest members to recover the cost of refilling the ditches.
(D)The town brings charges against the cooperative's field supervisors for approving each new ditch cut through the marsh.
(E)Neighbors and town officials hold a public meeting attacking the cooperative's standing in order to force a change in its practice.

The answer is (A). The author's fix is specific: the commission enters an order against the cooperative itself, which lowers the value of belonging to it, and that loss gives its members reason to push the council toward sounder drainage practice.

AWhy (A) is correct

The author's fix is specific: the commission enters an order against the cooperative itself, which lowers the value of belonging to it, and that loss gives its members reason to push the council toward sounder drainage practice. (A) tracks that exact chain: an order against the cooperative, then several of its largest members pressing the council to adopt stricter review of drainage plans. That's the members-pressuring-the-council step the author says makes cooperative liability work.

Why the other answers are wrong

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) gives the agency's negotiators the commission's disclosure powers, but the author treats accords as the weaker path throughout, not a route worth strengthening.

CWhy (C) is wrong

(C) sends neighboring landholders after the cooperative's largest members directly, the individual-targeting approach the author rejects, not commission action against the cooperative.

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) has the town charging field supervisors, the same individual-prosecution route the author says often can't even name someone to blame.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) has neighbors and officials attacking the cooperative's standing at a public meeting, pressure from outside rather than an order from the commission, so it skips the mechanism the author actually relies on.

Question 7: Inference

7. With which one of the following statements would the author be most likely to agree?

(A)Many cooperatives that an order of the commission would not hold back would nonetheless be held back by a private accord.
(B)The chief work of a private accord is to settle matters in which no individual answerable for a lost marsh can be named.
(C)In some cases, cooperatives drain marshland unlawfully and no neighbor is in a position to open a negotiation.
(D)Most of those who criticize public hearings believe that unlawful drainage rarely harms anyone.
(E)Cooperatives today enter private accords far more often than they answer at hearings before the commission.

The answer is (C). The author would most likely agree with (C). The passage says an accord's reach is narrower than a hearing because a negotiation begins only when a neighboring landholder has noticed the loss and can pay for the survey that documents it.

CWhy (C) is correct

The author would most likely agree with (C). The passage says an accord's reach is narrower than a hearing because a negotiation begins only when a neighboring landholder has noticed the loss and can pay for the survey that documents it. That condition doesn't always hold, so cases exist where a cooperative has drained unlawfully but no neighbor is positioned to start that negotiation, exactly what a public hearing, unlike an accord, can still reach.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) reverses the author's actual claim: the author holds the hearing is the stronger safeguard, never that accords catch cooperatives a commission order would miss.

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) hands accords a role the passage never gives them; nothing says settling unnamed-actor cases is an accord's chief function.

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) pins on the critics a belief the passage never reports. Those who criticize public hearings are the accords scholars, whose complaints are cost and how well acreage gets fixed, not that drainage is harmless, and the scholars who would name individual operators have no quarrel with the commission at all.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) states a frequency comparison, accords over hearings today, that the passage never tracks or numbers.

Watch: LSAT Main Point

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These explanations were written by Steve Schwartz, LSAT Coach and Founder of LSAT Unplugged. I've been coaching the LSAT since 2005. Cited by Reuters, Law.com, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, The Atlantic, U.S. News, the ABA Journal, and Above the Law.

Updated September 30, 2026.