Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Easy

PT103 S4 P2 Q10 ExplanationJames Porter

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsInferenceHumanities

Keep going in LSAT Lab

  • Save & drill this skill build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Full official LSAT questions are available through LawHub. This page provides LSAT Lab's explanation, strategy, and review tools without republishing the full official question.

Passage

James Porter (1905–1970) was the first scholar to identify the African influence on visual art in the Americas, and much of what is known about the cultural legacy that African-American artists inherited from their African forebears has come to us by way of his work. Porter, a painter and art historian, began went on to establish clearly the range of the cultural territory inherited by later African-American artists.

An example of this aspect of Porter’s research occurs in his essay “Robert S. Duncanson, Midwestern Romantic-Realist.” The work of Duncanson, a nineteenth-century painter of the Hudson River school, like that of his predecessor in the movement, Joshua Johnston, was commonly thought to have been created by a Euro-American artist. Porter proved genre portrait with evidence of an extensive knowledge of the cultural history of various African peoples.

In his later years, Porter wrote additional chapters for later editions of his book, constantly revising and correcting his findings, some of which had been based of necessity on fragmentary evidence. Among his later achievements were his definitive reckoning of the birth year of the painter Patrick Reason, long a point of of the Western world generally, a body of research whose riches scholars still have not exhausted.

What this question is testing

Inference

Your task

Find what must be true based on what the passage or stimulus states.

Common trap

Answers that are plausible or likely but not actually guaranteed by the text.

Winning move

Keep only the choice the statements fully support — eliminate anything that requires an extra assumption.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
10.

Which one of the following can most reasonably be inferred from the passage about the study that Porter left

Answer choices, explained

  1. Trap1% picked this

    If completed, it would have contradicted some of the conclusions contained in

  2. Trap7% picked this

    If completed, it would have amended some of the conclusions contained in

  3. Trap6% picked this

    If completed, it would have brought up to date the comprehensive history of African- American art begun

  4. Correct84% picked this

    If completed, it would have expanded upon the project of his earlier book by broadening the scope of inquiry

    Why this is right

    Answer D is correct.

    Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

  5. Trap2% picked this

    If completed, it would have supported some of the theories put forth by Porter’s contemporaries since the publication

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free