Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Medium

PT142 S3 P4 Q23 Explanation

The “Mexican American Generation”

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

TopicsNon-Author OpinionSociety

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Passage

This passage is adapted from a review of book.

In a recent study, Mario García argues that in the United States between 1930 and 1960 the group of political activists he calls the “Mexican American Generation” was more radical and politically diverse than earlier historians have recognized. Through analysis of the work of some of the era’s most important scholars, García Chicanos of the 1960s and 1970s. His study, however, suffers from two flaws.

First, García’s analysis of the evidence he provides to demonstrate the Mexican American Generation’s political diversity is not entirely consistent. Indeed, he undermines his primary thesis by emphasizing an underlying consensus among various groups that tends to conceal the full significance of their differences. Groups such as the League of United Latin political history since 1930 has been characterized not by consensus but by intense and lively debate.

Second, García may be exaggerating the degree to which the views of these activists were representative of the ethnic Mexican population residing in the United States during this period. Noting that by 1930 the proportion of the Mexican American population that had been born in the United States had significantly increased, García in the United States necessarily resulted in an increase in the ethnic Mexican population’s political activism.

What this question is testing

Non-Author Opinion

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
23.

It can be inferred from the passage that Garcia would most probably agree with which one of the following statements about the Mexican American political activists

Answer choices

  1. Correct78% picked this

    Some of their concerns were similar to those of the Mexican American activists of the

    Why this is right

    This maps pretty closely to our Support Sentence. And the language, "Some", is deliciously soft. We were told that these activists anticipated many of the reforms proposed by the more militant Chicanos of the 1960s and 1970s. That means that the reforms they were proposing were similar (harbingers / foreshadowing / forerunners) of the stuff being proposed in the 60s/70s. Hence, they had some similar concerns with activists from the 60s/70s.

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

  2. Unsupported Comparison: diverse10% picked this

    They were more politically diverse than the Mexican American activists of the

    In the 2nd paragraph, the author stresses the political (and combative) diversity of thought within the Mexican American activist movement. Garcia acknowledges these differences but dismisses them as insignificant. So Garcia is actually downplaying the political differences. Most importantly, neither the author nor Garcia compare the political diversity of the 30s/40s to that of the 60s/70s.

  3. Contradicted4% picked this

    They were as militant as the Mexican American activists of the

    Our support sentence towards the end of the 1st paragraph says that the activists of the 60s/70s were more militant.

  4. Too Strong: most3% picked this

    Most of them advocated bilingual education and equal rights for resident aliens in

    This language about bilingual education / equal rights isn't anywhere near our Support Window. And answers that use "most" or its synonyms are famously dangerous. We can only pick these if we find support text that talks about "most activists in the 30s/40s" or that generalizes about them in a way that we can assume thereby applies to most. The concepts of "bilingual education and equal rights for resident aliens" come from the 2nd paragraph. It should unnerve us that this answer is copying that much text verbatim from the passage (that's the hallmark of trap answers, not correct ones). We are told that "the Congress of Spanish-Speaking people" advocates these two things. We're never told that most Mexican American activists in the 30s/40s do.

  5. Too Strong: most Contradicted, if anything5% picked this

    Most of them were more interested in revolution than in

    We're told that the activists of the 60s/70s are the more militant ones, so they would be the ones more interested in revolution. And Garcia notes in the 2nd paragraph, the goals of groups as disparate as these (different groups of Mexican American activists) centered on liberal reform, not revolution.

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