Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT153 S1 P4 Q23 ExplanationThe Griot Of West Africa

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

TopicsInferenceSociety

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Passage

Passage A is adapted from a book by a music historian, and passage anthropology journal.

Passage

Many commentators have described the blues musician of the United States as an extension of the griot of West Africa, yet one could hardly find two performers with less in common from a sociological perspective. Griots were the historians of their communities, representatives of time-honored traditions, the preservers of lore and cultural the griotʼs song filled many of the roles that these institutions serve in other societies.

The blues musician, in contrast, honed a music of personal expression, often reflecting a lack of connection to the broader streams of society, evoking feelings of alienation and anomie. Slavery caused this terrible disjunction. Slavery destroyed in large part the traditional social fabric, the communal values, the historical music was, in many ways, a response to this deprivation.

And here we encounter the fundamental tragedy of the blues and one of the sources of its unparalleled symbolic power. For the music sings of small, everyday details of individual lives. But behind this facade always sits a larger reality, invariably unspoken, but no less present for this silence. Separated from the the perennial themes of blues music—heartache and hardships—capture in a personal dimension the larger social truth.

Passage

Fifteenth-century Portuguese explorers observed a stratified social hierarchy in the Wolof culture of Senegal, with a high-status noble sector (géer) and low-status caste groups (ñeeño). Wolof elites of the day the lowest of which was griot.

Griots alone specialized in the spoken word. Raising oneʼs voice in public was considered inappropriate for socially prominent people, but griots, considered unmarriageable outside their caste, shouted and sang their patronsʼ praises to drum, and always with great eloquence.

At community gatherings, griots accompanied their patrons, with whom they had usually inherited a close relationship through generations of service. Reciting vivid histories about the brave deeds of their patronsʼ family ancestors and singing praises about their exemplary work and daily conduct, griots used their music to sway public opinion in favor patrons required griots to be sensitive to Wolof community values and conceptions of correct social conduct.

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
23.

Based on the information in passage A about blues and the information in passage B about the music of Wolof griots, which one of the following

Answer choices, explained

  1. Unsupported for B18% picked this

    Both types of music were drawn from feelings of alienation within

    Although it seems plausible to speculate that griots, being the lowest caste and unmarriageable outside their caste, would have feelings of alienation, passage B never explicitly talks about griots feeling alienation.

  2. Unsupported for B5% picked this

    Each type of music was created in response to a

    The cultural loss for blues musicians was caused by being ripped away (via slave trade) from their cultural home in West Africa. But griots still live there, so where is their cultural loss?

  3. Unsupported for A23% picked this

    Both types of music served to preserve the traditions of

    Blues is never said to preserve the traditions of its society. Blues offers African Americans a metaphorical outlet for the pain of their lost identity, and the cultural tradition from which they were separated. But blues musicians are within the United States society, and they're definitely not trying to be in charge of cultural preservation for U.S. majority culture.

  4. Unsupported for Both5% picked this

    Both types of music were derived from earlier African

    The first sentence of Passage A says that people describe the blues musician as an extension of the griot, but it's never clearly stated why, and it certainly doesn't attribute any musical similarities. Furthermore, griot music is never said to derive from an earlier African musical tradition. It was a musical tradition in Africa, but this answer is saying we were told that griot music was an outgrowth of some previous African tradition.

  5. Correct49% picked this

    Each type of music is characterized by subject matter that is typically drawn from a

    Why this is right

    Circumscribed = tightly drawn limits Do both genres have a pretty narrow set of themes? The final sentence of Passage A tells us that blues music has perennial (constant) themes of heartache and hardships. The last paragraph of Passage B details a broader, but well-defined set of themes for griots: - brave deeds of patron's family - patron's exemplary work and daily conduct - public, community values / correct social conduct The final sentence of Passage B uses the strong word required to stress that griots were loud and proud, but definitely played by a set of rules that kept them in the public's good graces.

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

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