Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Medium

PT147 S2 P2 Q10 ExplanationEileen Grey

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

Start practicing free

Free to start

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

Best known for her work with lacquer, Eileen Gray (1878–1976) had a fascinating and multifaceted artistic career: she became a designer of ornaments, furniture, interiors, and eventually homes. Though her attention shifted from smaller objects to the very large, she always focused on details, even details that were forever hidden. In Paris that had flourished in Paris, preferring the austere beauty of straight lines and simple forms juxtaposed.

In addition to requiring painstaking layering, the wood used in lacquer work must be lacquered on both sides to prevent warping. This tension between aesthetic demands and structural requirements, which invests Gray’s work in lacquer with an architectural quality, is critical but not always apparent: a folding screen or door panel reveals as tubular steel, to create furniture and environments that, though visually austere, meet their occupants’ needs.

Gray’s work in both lacquer and interior design prefigures her work as an architect. She did not believe that one should divorce the structural design of the exterior from the design of the interior. She designed the interior elements of a house together with the more permanent structures, as an integrated whole. each location, as though to underscore that there is no important distinction between exterior and interior.

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.

The passage provides information that most strongly supports which one of the

Answer choices, explained

  1. Contradicted10% picked this

    Gray's reputation rests primarily on the range of styles and media in which she worked, rather than on her

    We know from the very first sentence that Gray's reputation is primarily for working with lacquer, which is a particular medium.

  2. Too Strong: most8% picked this

    Gray personally constructed most of the interior furnishings that

    We don't have anything in the passage that specifies what percentage of furnishings that Gray designed were also personally constructed by her.. It could be over 50% or under, so we can't say she personally constructed most of them.

  3. Too Strong: generally inappropriate2% picked this

    In Paris in Gray's time, wood was generally considered an inappropriate medium

    The only thing we know about Paris during Gray's time is that it was possible to study the Japanese tradition of lacquer, despite it being little known in Europe. This answer is trying to combine "lacquer was little known" with "lacquer involves coating wood" to derive, "most people in Paris though wood was an inappropriate medium for visual art". That's way too strong, broad, and speculative. The passage is saying few people knew of lacquer, not few people approved of lacquer. And who says that lacquer is the only medium of visual art involving wood? Maybe Parisians love other art styles that involve wood.

  4. Too Strong: few1% picked this

    Few of Gray's works in lacquer were intended for

    We don't ever really talk about whether works were / weren't intended for public viewing. This answer might be trying to distort the meaning of "details that were forever hidden". But we certainly can't say, "Under 50% of Gray's lacquer works were intended for public viewing". It also flies in the face of the first sentence, which tells us that she is best known for her work with lacquer.

  5. Correct79% picked this

    Much of Gray's later work was functional as well

    Why this is right

    "Much of" is not the same as "most of". We can say that "Much of Game of Thrones consists of people doing battle with dragons", but we couldn't say "Most of Game of Thrones consists of people doing battle with dragons", because dragon-fights didn't account for more than 50% of screen time. What do we know about Gray's later work? In the 2nd paragraph, "later she made door panels and even unfolded the panels into screens. In a screen she made for the lobby of an apartment ... the screen thus becomes a painting, a piece of furniture, and an architectural element all at once". The end of the 2nd says, "She subsequently became heavily invested in the design of furniture." And then the last paragraph is saying that the stage after that involved work as an architect. So much of her later work is furniture and architecture, which are designed to be functional and ornamental.

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

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

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

Save and practice this skill
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