Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Easy

PT139 S2 P1 Q4 Explanation

New Urbanism

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

TopicsMeaning in ContextSociety

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Passage

Over the past 50 years, expansive, low-density communities have proliferated at the edges of many cities in the United States and Canada, creating a phenomenon known as suburban sprawl. Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck, a group of prominent town planners belonging to a movement called New Urbanism, contend that suburban town planners contend, as it is to imagine the concept of family independent of the home.

Suburban housing subdivisions, Duany and his colleagues add, usually contain homes identical not only in appearance but also in price, resulting in a de facto economic segregation of residential neighborhoods. Children growing up in these neighborhoods, whatever their economic circumstances, are certain to be ill prepared for life in a diverse society. give people of diverse backgrounds and lifestyles an opportunity to interact and thus develop mutual respect.

Opponents of New Urbanism claim that migration to sprawling suburbs is an expression of people’s legitimate desire to secure the enjoyment and personal mobility provided by the automobile and the lifestyle that it makes possible. However, the New Urbanists do not question people’s right to their own values; instead, they suggest that individual mobility, consumption, and wealth should be valued absolutely, regardless of their impact on community life.

What this question is testing

Meaning in Context

Your task

Pin down exactly what the question asks about the passage — a detail, the author's view, the structure, or the main point — before looking at the choices.

Common trap

Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.

Winning move

Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.

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

The question
4.

Which one of the following most accurately describes the author’s use of the word “communities” in the first sentence and “community” at the end

Answer choices

  1. Contradicted4% picked this

    They are intended to be understood in almost identical ways, the only significant difference being that one is plural

    The words have different meanings as they are used in the passage.

  2. Correct93% picked this

    The former is intended to refer to dwellings—and their inhabitants—that happen to be clustered together in particular areas; in the latter, the author means

    Why this is right

    In the first paragraph “communities” are described as low-density, which refers to the population or inhabitants. In the first paragraph “community” is compared to a family, which has a sense of belonging together.

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

  3. Out of Scope1% picked this

    In the former, the author means that the groups referred to are to be defined in terms of the interests of their members; the

    The interests of the people are not relevant to define “communities” as it is used in the first paragraph.

  4. Out of Scope1% picked this

    The former is intended to refer to groups of people whose members have professional or political ties to one another; the latter is intended

    Professional or political ties are not relevant to define “communities” as it is used in the first paragraph.

  5. Out of Scope1% picked this

    In the former, the author means that there are informal personal ties among members of a group of people; the latter is intended to

    Backgrounds and lifestyles are not relevant to define “community” as it is used in the first paragraph.

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