Passage Discussion

[LSAT-Chang]

Did anyone come up with a "scale" for this passage? This was the outline I had:

P1 - background information on downstate campaign
P2 - ministers involvement in the downstate campaign risky??
P2 - outcome of the downstate campaign

I'm not sure if my scale is even close to the ideal one, but I came up with two...

First scale
Side (1) - downstate campaign risky for political ministers
Side (2) - downstate campaign not risky for political ministers (evidence of the outcome of the campaign??)

but with this scale, I had no one standing under side 1... so came up with another one:

Second scale
Side (1) - downstate campaign successful (although didn't achieve the goals - it had positive outcomes)
Side (2) - downstate campaign unsuccessful

again with this one.. had no one for side 2...

I wasn't sure if I was understanding the passage correctly -- what are the two sides???

[timmydoeslsat]

Just read this passage.

My visual scale of the passage was that this was just a one-sided affair in which the author tells us of an event that happened.

I think that anticipation is so big on reading comprehension.

I read the first paragraph and took a guess on what the second paragraph might say.

I was thinking it would talk about what changes were made as a result of the actions from the ministers and this Downstate campaign.

Instead, I get more information regarding how this campaign went the way it did. Why ministers were chosen. Why there may have been issues with those ministers being chosen.

Since I was so off on my prediction, I surely remembered that the second paragraph went into detail regarding the set up of this campaign.

As for the third paragraph, I guessed that it would talk about certain examples of how those ministers had their political careers jeopardized. Maybe an example of someone that said they would close their checkbook if a minister helped with such a campaign.

Instead, I get information telling me that the end result of this campaign did not achieve the government policies it wanted changed and it did not achieve the union hiring practices it wanted changed.

However, the author tells us that it was still a significant event because of the attention and public arousal it generated.


In short, I did not create a visual scale. Such a scale will automatically be triggered by a central argument. Do not force one when one is not there.

[LSAT-Chang]

Thanks for the great advice Tim, I think I have a tendency to look for one even when there is no actual debate going on. I guess I need to be more flexible!