Unplugged Practice Test / Explanations / Reading Comprehension, Passage 2

Unplugged Practice Test: Reading Comprehension, Passage 2

Reading Comprehension · Passage 2 of 4 · Questions 8 to 14

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Passage 2 carries 7 questions. The answers, in order: question 8 is (D), question 9 is (B), question 10 is (A), question 11 is (E), question 12 is (C), question 13 is (D), question 14 is (B). 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

Historian of oral poetry Halina Barros calls the years 1540 to 1690 the plain-telling age of the Castilian sung epic. In her account, the singing of those generations answers to ordinary demands of narrative: a listener follows named heroes through events delivered in the order they occurred. Diction, meter, pauses, and the performer's own manner are all kept in service of the tale, a restraint Barros names thrift. Lifelike, in her usage, means something narrow, and that is the sense the word carries here: the sung world stands up on its own and looks much like the world the listener walks home to. Singers of the age steer clear of turns that point at the song as a made thing rather than at the tale.

Measured against that definition, the garland songs of the 1620s sit oddly, since they break off the tale to unfurl showpieces only loosely tied to it. Among the epics taken down from the reciter Ines Quejada, one has a herald halt at the gate to name the river at first light. That line is repeated, an unremarkable move, and the repetition swells into a long catalogue surveying the whole valley from above: threshing floors, kites turning, the ford, the herds coming down. Though the catalogue elaborates the line that set it off, it adds nothing to the tale Quejada sings on either side of it. In passages like this one, the resources of verse give the listener rest from the tale rather than driving it on; the people named work as ornaments, not as anyone who acts; meter and repetition sort images into worked patterns instead of carrying events along.

Do the garland songs, whose sharply unlike passages sit shoulder to shoulder, belong inside Barros's definition? Barros answers that this kind of song, like the boast contest and the lament (both fixtures of those same generations), grew out of festival recitation and the peddled broadside. Its conventions, she argues, teach listeners to expect a shape no other kind has, tale and self-standing showpiece taking turns, and listeners, being schooled in that shape, hear it as lifelike.

Reaching for kind and convention does not cover how far Barros bends the word lifelike, because the trouble in Quejada's epics stays put: the showpieces go past standing alone into standing for themselves, and the vanity of the catalogue exists to display its own skill, not to move the tale. A listener who knows the kind still hears the valley of the story give way to a pattern of images, a world that no longer looks like the one outside the song. Barros hurries past the point that listening happens in the moment, as perception, not as a tidy sorting of works into kinds. Since knowledge of a kind is picked up over time, and a turn becomes a convention only after it has been met again and again, scholars like Barros should ask first how listeners take in verse, and only then say how lifelike a manner is.

Steve's walkthrough, question by question

Question 8: Main Point

8. Which one of the following best states the passage's central claim?

(A)A closer look at kinds such as the garland song bears out Barros's account of plain-telling manner, appearances notwithstanding.
(B)The garland songs of the 1620s are not lifelike, contrary to Barros, because they scramble the order in which events happened.
(C)Because kinds such as the garland song descend from older festival recitation forms, they can be counted inside Barros's definition of plain-telling manner.
(D)Barros's appeal to convention leads her to count the 1620s garland songs as lifelike despite weighty evidence otherwise, and that result shows what is wrong with her approach.
(E)Quejada's epics fail Barros's conditions and so cannot be counted as cases of plain-telling manner.

The answer is (D). Barros's own account says garland songs earn the label lifelike through kind and convention, tale and showpiece taking turns until listeners hear that pairing as lifelike.

DWhy (D) is correct

Barros's own account says garland songs earn the label lifelike through kind and convention, tale and showpiece taking turns until listeners hear that pairing as lifelike. The passage presses on Quejada's epics, where the catalogue exists to display its own skill rather than move the tale along, so a listener still hears the valley of the story give way to imagery rather than a lifelike world. Because Barros's appeal to convention leads her to call these garland songs lifelike anyway, despite that mismatch, the passage argues her approach is off, since it sorts songs by kind before asking how a listener actually takes in verse. That's the claim (D) states.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) reverses the passage's verdict: the author reads the garland-song evidence as damaging to Barros's account, not as confirming it.

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) misstates the complaint, since the passage never faults the garland songs for scrambling chronological order, only for showpieces that call attention to themselves.

CWhy (C) is wrong

(C) is Barros's own defense, that kind and convention explain the pairing, which the passage raises only to argue it doesn't rescue her definition.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) overstates the conclusion. The point is that Barros's definition strains to cover Quejada's epics, not a flat ruling that they fail every condition.

Question 9: Detail

9. The passage attributes to Barros's definition of the plain-telling manner each of the following EXCEPT:

(A)steering clear of turns that spotlight the song as a made thing
(B)showpieces free of story set between stretches of the tale
(C)named heroes whom a listener follows
(D)events delivered in the order they occurred
(E)a world that stands on its own and looks much like the listener's

The answer is (B). Barros's plain-telling definition, as the passage sets it out, covers steering clear of turns that spotlight the song as a made thing, named heroes a listener follows, events delivered in the order they occurred, and a world that stands on its own and looks much like the listener's.

BWhy (B) is correct

Barros's plain-telling definition, as the passage sets it out, covers steering clear of turns that spotlight the song as a made thing, named heroes a listener follows, events delivered in the order they occurred, and a world that stands on its own and looks much like the listener's. Showpieces set apart from the tale are not part of that definition. They're the garland songs' anomaly, the thing Barros has to explain away by appeal to kind and convention, not a feature she builds into the plain-telling manner itself. That's why (B) is the one the passage doesn't attribute to her definition.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) is anchored in the definition: the passage says singers of the age steer clear of turns that point at the song as a made thing.

CWhy (C) is wrong

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) is in there as well, since events are delivered in the order they occurred.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) comes straight from the definition: the sung world stands up on its own and looks much like the world the listener walks home to.

Question 10: Function

10. In this passage, the word "lifelike" is used by the author to designate which quality of a sung epic?

(A)the quality by which the world of the song resembles ordinary life
(B)the quality by which the shape of its telling gets the tale across
(C)the quality by which the craft of verse is kept in service of the tale
(D)the quality by which listeners can readily place it among kinds of song
(E)the quality by which it can draw on several shapes of telling at once

The answer is (A). Barros's word is narrow: the first paragraph glosses lifelike as the sung world standing up on its own and looking much like the world the listener walks home to, which is resemblance to ordinary life. (A) names exactly that quality.

AWhy (A) is correct

Barros's word is narrow: the first paragraph glosses lifelike as the sung world standing up on its own and looking much like the world the listener walks home to, which is resemblance to ordinary life. (A) names exactly that quality. Everything else in the passage, thrift, the tale's order, the garland songs' showpieces, describes how a performance earns or loses that resemblance, not what the word itself means.

Why the other answers are wrong

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) describes the shape of telling that gets a tale across, the convention Barros leans on for the garland songs, not the resemblance the word itself names.

CWhy (C) is wrong

(C) points at thrift, the restraint that keeps craft in service of the tale, a means toward lifelike and not the quality the word names.

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) covers placing a song among kinds, the convention argument from the third paragraph, not what lifelike means.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) describes drawing on several shapes of telling at once, the garland songs' oddity, not the word's meaning.

Question 11: Function

11. Which one of the following best describes the way the passage is organized?

(A)The author disputes a scholar's thesis, offers an example supporting a rival thesis, reports the scholar's reply, and urges that the rival thesis be adopted.
(B)The author lays out a scholar's thesis, offers an example that bears the thesis out, reports the scholar's reading of that example, notes a difficulty in the reading, and proposes adjusting it.
(C)The author disputes a scholar's thesis, gives an example showing the thesis to be a liability, reports the scholar's reply, notes a difficulty in the reply, and advances a substitute thesis.
(D)The author lays out a scholar's thesis, cites published research that confirms it, sets an example against that research, reports the scholar's reply, grants the reply its force, and calls for further study of the question.
(E)The author lays out a scholar's thesis, sets an example against the thesis, reports the scholar's reply, identifies a difficulty in the reply, and faults the starting point of the scholar's inquiry.

The answer is (E). The author lays out Barros's plain-telling thesis, then sets Quejada's garland-song catalogue against it as a counterexample that strains her idea of lifelike. Barros replies that garland songs belong to their own kind, shaped by festival and broadside convention, but the author finds a difficulty: listening happens moment to moment, as perception, while a sense of kind builds up only through repeated exposure.

EWhy (E) is correct

The author lays out Barros's plain-telling thesis, then sets Quejada's garland-song catalogue against it as a counterexample that strains her idea of lifelike. Barros replies that garland songs belong to their own kind, shaped by festival and broadside convention, but the author finds a difficulty: listening happens moment to moment, as perception, while a sense of kind builds up only through repeated exposure. The closing move faults where Barros starts her inquiry, urging that scholars study how listeners take in verse before judging how lifelike a manner is. That run, thesis, counterexample, reply, difficulty, and a fault with the starting point, matches (E) exactly.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) has the author urging that a rival thesis be adopted, but the close only calls for a different question to be asked first, not a competing theory.

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) says the catalogue example bears the thesis out, when it actually strains it, and calls the ending a proposal to adjust the reading rather than a challenge to the whole approach.

CWhy (C) is wrong

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) invents confirming published research and a reply the author grants force, neither of which the passage contains.

Question 12: Inference

12. The author would be most likely to agree with which statement below?

(A)Quejada's epics stand alone among garland songs in carrying showpieces that do nothing for the tale.
(B)The craft of verse in the plain-telling age was for the most part handled coarsely.
(C)Listeners come to take certain turns as conventions mainly by meeting them over and over.
(D)Every kind of song popular in the plain-telling age grew out of some festival form.
(E)Most garland songs of the 1620s set out to tell true-to-life stories.

The answer is (C). (C) follows from the final paragraph. It says knowledge of a kind is picked up over time, and that a turn becomes a convention only after listeners have met it again and again. If a convention needs repeated encounters before it settles in, then listeners come to treat a turn as conventional mainly through that repetition.

CWhy (C) is correct

(C) follows from the final paragraph. It says knowledge of a kind is picked up over time, and that a turn becomes a convention only after listeners have met it again and again. If a convention needs repeated encounters before it settles in, then listeners come to treat a turn as conventional mainly through that repetition.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) the passage uses Quejada's epics as an example of the garland song's showpieces, not as singular among garland songs generally, so this overstates what's shown.

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) the plain-telling age is defined by thrift, keeping diction, meter, and pauses in service of the tale, the opposite of coarse craftsmanship.

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) Barros ties the garland song, the boast contest, and the lament to festival recitation and the broadside, but nothing says every kind of song from the age shares that origin.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) the whole point about garland songs is that their showpieces pull away from the tale into patterns that no longer look like the world outside the song, not that they set out to tell true-to-life stories.

Question 13: Analogy/Application

13. Of the following hypothetical stage plays, whose structure is the closest counterpart to the 1620s garland song as the author describes it?

(A)a play that jumps from incident to incident without giving a spectator the background or order needed to follow them
(B)a play that tracks several strangers through one incident apiece and ends with an incident that gathers them all
(C)a play that tracks several neighbors through one incident apiece, the incidents together sketching an ordinary day in the district
(D)a play that follows one character across a single day, halting often for ornate speeches on that character's musings and daydreams
(E)a play that follows one character through a chain of incidents, halting often for dreamlike scenes of that character's early years that fill in what the incidents leave dark

The answer is (D). The shape underneath the herald and the valley is what the question turns on: a tale that keeps stopping so a showpiece can unfurl, a showpiece tied to the tale only loosely and adding nothing to it, the way Quejada's catalogue of threshing floors and kites and herds swells out of one repeated line and then goes nowhere.

DWhy (D) is correct

The shape underneath the herald and the valley is what the question turns on: a tale that keeps stopping so a showpiece can unfurl, a showpiece tied to the tale only loosely and adding nothing to it, the way Quejada's catalogue of threshing floors and kites and herds swells out of one repeated line and then goes nowhere. The right answer is a play built the same way, one plot paused again and again for ornament that doesn't move it. (D) matches: one character's single day, interrupted repeatedly by ornate speeches on that character's own musings, speeches that are display, not plot.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) is about a story with no order or context connecting its incidents, a problem of sequence, not of pausing for showpieces.

BWhy (B) is wrong

(B) gathers separate strangers into one closing incident, a plot design with no self-contained interludes at all.

CWhy (C) is wrong

(C) sketches an ordinary day through several neighbors' incidents, again a plot structure rather than a tale broken by ornament.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) uses dreamlike scenes that fill in what the incidents leave dark, so they feed the story the way the garland catalogue never feeds Quejada's tale; that's the opposite of standing apart from it.

Question 14: Analogy/Application

14. If true, which statement below would most seriously undermine the position attributed to Barros at the close of the third paragraph?

(A)Critics writing in the 1620s tended to praise the least lifelike stretches of the garland songs.
(B)Listeners meeting the kind for the first time responded to these songs just as practiced listeners did.
(C)Listeners sought out garland songs mainly for the pleasure of the showpieces rather than for the tales.
(D)Listeners attend more closely to works of a kind they have not met before.
(E)The recited festival garlands circulating before the 1620s closely resemble the garland songs in manner.

The answer is (B). At the end of the third paragraph, Barros holds that listeners who know the garland song's conventions have been trained to expect the swap between tale and showpiece, and that training is why they hear it as lifelike.

BWhy (B) is correct

At the end of the third paragraph, Barros holds that listeners who know the garland song's conventions have been trained to expect the swap between tale and showpiece, and that training is why they hear it as lifelike. (B) knocks that out: if listeners meeting this kind for the first time reacted exactly the way practiced listeners did, then knowing the convention isn't doing the work Barros says it does, since the untrained get the same lifelike impression without it.

Why the other answers are wrong

AWhy (A) is wrong

(A) reports that critics praised the least lifelike passages, which says nothing about whether genre familiarity shapes how ordinary listeners hear the songs.

CWhy (C) is wrong

(C) claims listeners came for the showpieces rather than the tale, a point about why they listen, not about what makes the songs feel lifelike.

DWhy (D) is wrong

(D) says listeners attend more closely to works of an unfamiliar kind, a separate fact about attention that doesn't touch the convention-to-realism link.

EWhy (E) is wrong

(E) notes that earlier festival garlands resemble these songs, which fits Barros's account of where the convention came from rather than challenging it.

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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.