Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT142 S3 P4 Q24 Explanation

The “Mexican American Generation”

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

TopicsInferenceSociety

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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

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
24.

The passage suggests that Garcia assumes which one of the following to have been true of Mexican Americans

Answer choices

  1. Opposite16% picked this

    Increased ethnic consciousness among Mexican Americans accounted for an increase in political

    The author is thinking that decreased ethnic consciousness accounted for an increase in political activity, if we imagine that it's a zero sum game between acculturating to the U.S. and maintaining the ethnic culture from Mexico. Garcia thinks that these activists were a new generation of leaders, one that was more acculturated and hence more politically active than its predecessor.

  2. Correct49% picked this

    Increased familiarity among Mexican Americans with United States culture accounted for an increase in political

    Why this is right

    In the second sentence of the final paragraph, the author says that Garcia argues that a new generation of Mexican American leaders appeared. They were more acculturated. Hence, they were more politically active. Assumption? Being more acculturated made them more politically active.

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

  3. Opposite2% picked this

    The assimilation of many Mexican Americans into United States culture accounted for Mexican Americans' lack of

    Being assimilated = being acculturated As we've discussed in (A) and (B), the author believes that assimilating more into US culture, absorbing the wartime rhetoric, and becoming resolved to achieve full civil rights were all motivating Mexican Americans to have more interest in political activity.

  4. Too Strong: militancy8% picked this

    Many Mexican Americans were moved to political militancy as a means of achieving full civil rights for all United

    The term "militant" is a strong one, meaning "radical, inflexible, maximalist, dogmatic". A militant vegan is one who won't eat of any grill that has ever been used to cook meat and who makes all the people they're eating with feel guilty about any animal products they're consuming. In this passage, militant is only used in the first paragraph, to describe the activists in the 1960s.

  5. Opposite: patronizing rhetoric25% picked this

    Many Mexican Americans were moved to political protest by their experience of discrimination and the patronizing rhetoric of

    "Patronizing" means to look down on someone, to condescend. The passage identifies the wartime rhetoric as inclusive, as in "You're our equal! Let's all pitch in as fellow Americans of all backgrounds to stop Hitler."

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