Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Easy

PT2 S1 P1 Q2 Explanation

Langston Hughes' Folk Poetry

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

TopicsInferenceHumanities

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Passage

There is substantial evidence that by 1926, with the publication of The Weary Blues, Langston Hughes had broken with two well-established traditions in African American literature. In The Weary Blues, Hughes chose to modify the traditions that decreed that African American literature must promote racial acceptance and integration, and that, in order be used to promote racial acceptance and integration only on the condition that it became Europeanized.

Even more than his rebellion against this restrictive tradition in African American art, Hughes’s expression of the vibrant folk culture of Black people established his writing as a landmark in the history of African American literature. Most of his folk poems have the distinctive marks of this folk culture’s oral tradition: they of Black writers and consequently to broaden the linguistic and thematic range of African American literature.

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
2.

The author suggests that the “deceptive veil” (Second Paragraph) in Hughes’s

Answer choices

  1. Contradicted10% picked this

    evidence of his use of oral techniques in

    The sentence before our target is all about how Hughes' poetry exemplifies aspects of African American oral tradition, so this is a tempting choice. But "the deceptive veil of artlessness" isn't aimed at disguising those aspects of the poems. It's actually aimed at highlighting them. It's those oral techniques that make the poems sound effortless, which is what Hughes is going for.

  2. Correct82% picked this

    evidence of his thoughtful deliberation in composing

    Why this is right

    "The deceptive veil of artlessness" is what tricks us into thinking that his poems are impromptu and effortless. It disguises how hard he actually worked to create the poems.

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

  3. Out of Scope: representative details4% picked this

    his scrupulous concern for representative details in

    The passage never mentions representative details so we're not given any reason to believe the deceptive veil was designed to hide his concern for such details in his poetry.

  4. Contradicted3% picked this

    his incorporation of Western European literary techniques in

    Paragraph 1 tells us that Hughes modified the tradition of incorporating Western European literary techniques. Paragraph 2 goes further, calling his work a rebellion against a restrictive tradition. The deceptive veil isn't disguising his actual adherence to this tradition. The deceptive veil is part of how he's bucking the tradition by writing folk poems that sound effortless, even though it took a lot of effort and artistry to compose them.

  5. Unsupported Comparison1% picked this

    his engagement with social and political issues rather than

    This passage doesn't say Hughes was concerned with social and political issues rather than aesthetic issues. He creates poems with a different sound than other poetry: that's aesthetic. And he rebels against the socio-political idea that African American literature must promote racial acceptance and integration, so if anything, he seems more concerned with the aesthetic than the political.

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