Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Medium

PT130 S2 P2 Q8 Explanation

Philip Emeagwali

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

TopicsMain PointScience

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Passage

This passage was adapted from articles published in

The success that Nigerian-born computer scientist Philip Emeagwali (b. 1954) has had in designing computers that solve real-world problems has been fueled by his willingness to reach beyond established paradigms and draw inspiration for his designs from nature. In the 1980s, Emeagwali achieved breakthroughs in the design of parallel computer systems. Whereas supercomputers worked sequentially, they were too slow and inefficient to accurately predict such extremely complex movements.

To model oil field flow using a computer requires the simulation of the distribution of the oil at tens of thousands of locations throughout the field. At each location, hundreds of simultaneous calculations must be made at regular time intervals relating to such variables as temperature, direction of oil flow, viscosity, and gather and broadcast the largest quantity of messages to its processing points in the shortest time.

In 1996 Emeagwali had another breakthrough when he presented the design for a massively parallel computer that he claims will be powerful enough to predict global weather patterns a century in advance. The computer’s design is based on the geometry of bees’ honeycombs, which use an extremely efficient three-dimensional spacing. Emeagwali believes understand the systems evolved by nature and, thereby, to facilitate the evolution of human technology.

What this question is testing

Main Point

Your task

Capture the passage's overall primary point — the claim everything else supports.

Common trap

Answers that are true but too narrow (a single paragraph) or too broad (beyond the passage's scope).

Winning move

Summarize the whole passage in one sentence first, then match it to a choice.

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

The question
8.

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

Answer choices

  1. Too Strong: wide array4% picked this

    Emeagwali's establishment of new computational paradigms has enabled parallel computer systems to solve a wide array of real-world

    As far as the passage tells us, Emeagwali solved the problem of modeling oil field flow, but that's it. Saying that what he's done has already enabled parallel computing to solve a wide array is too much. He hopes that parallel computing will continue to have breakthroughs, but this answer makes it sound too established and successful already. It's also strong to say that he established a new computational paradigm. We know he is willing to look beyond established paradigms and he believes that "computer scientists in the future will look more to nature for solutions (as a paradigm shift), but to say he's established a new paradigm again sounds too much like he's already transformed an industry. He is more of a visionary that may inspire a transformation yet to come.

  2. Wrong Emphasis0% picked this

    Emeagwali has shown that scientists' allegiance to established paradigms has until now prevented the solution of many real-world computational problems that could otherwise

    The main clause is saying, "Emeagwali has shown that scientists' allegiance to ...". We can stop there. This passage was not centered around scientists' allegiance to anything. We want to hear the emphasis of "breakthroughs in parallel computing, using nature as inspiration". This answer doesn't have any of that.

  3. Out of Scope: discovery5% picked this

    Emeagwali's discovery of the basic mathematical principles underlying natural systems has led to a growing use of parallel computer systems to

    The passage never said that Emeagwali was noteworthy for having discovered the basic math principles underlying natural systems. He's noteworthy for being inspired by the math principles underlying certain natural systems and applying those insights to solve problems, using parallel computing.

  4. Correct80% picked this

    Emeagwali has designed parallel computer systems that are modeled on natural systems and that are aimed at solving real-world computational problems that would be

    Why this is right

    This doesn't emphasize his "breakthroughs", but it's otherwise saying big picture stuff that is all true. We've got parallel computing and inspired by nature. We know from the oil field example (and the global weather pattern computer in the works) that he is trying to solve real-world computational problems that are hard to solve with more traditional designs (the sequential supercomputer was unable to solve the problem of modeling oil field flow, just as it would be to solve the problem of modeling global weather patterns).

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

  5. Wrong Emphasis11% picked this

    The paradigm shift initiated by Emeagwali's computer designs has made it more likely that scientists will in the future look to systems evolved by

    This answer makes the main point out to be the aftermath / impact of Emeagwali's paradigm shift, which the passage never discusses. The passage, meanwhile, is centered on Emeagwali's actual work, not its aftermath or impact. In fact, we don't know if his work has had any impact on others in the field yet. We only get at the very end his hope / expectation that computer scientists in the future will follow his lead.

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