Test Prep LSAT Section 2 Reading Comprehension

For some years before the outbreak of World War I, a number of painters in different European countries developed works of art that some have described as prophetic: paintings that by challenging viewers' habitual ways of perceiving the world of the present are thus said to anticipate a future world that would be very different. The artistic styles that they brought into being varied widely, but all these styles had in common a very important break with traditions of representational art that stretched back to the Renaissance.

So fundamental is this break with tradition that it is not surprising to discover that these artistsamong them Picasso and Braque in France, Kandinsky inGermany, and Malevich in Russiaare often credited with having anticipated not just subsequent developments in the arts, but also the political and social disruptions and upheavals of the modern world that came into being during and after the war. One art critic even goes so far as to claim that it is the very prophetic power of these artworks, and not their break with traditional artistic techniques, that constitutes their chief interest and value.

No one will deny that an artist may, just as much as a writer or a politician, speculate about the future and then try to express a vision of that future through making use of a particular style or choice of imagery; speculation about the possibility of war in Europe was certainly widespread during the early years of the twentieth century. But the forward-looking quality attributed to these artists should instead be credited to their exceptional aesthetic innovations rather than to any power to make clever guesses about political or social trends. For example, the clear impression we get of Picasso and Braque, the joint founders of cubism, from their contemporaries as well as from later statements made by the artists themselves, is that they were primarily concerned with problems of representation and form and with efforts to create a far more "real" reality than the one that was accessible only to the eye. The reformation of society was of no interest to them as artists.

It is also important to remember that not all decisive changes in art are quickly followed by dramatic events in the world outside art. The case of Delacroix, the nineteenth-century French painter, is revealing. His stylistic innovations startled his contemporariesand still retain that power over modern viewersbut most art historians have decided that Delacroix adjusted himself to new social conditions that were already coming into being as a result of political upheavals that had occurred in 1830, as opposed to other artists who supposedly told of changes still to come.

According to the author, the work of the pre-World War I painters described in the passage contains an example of each of the following EXCEPT:

Scientists have long known that the soft surface of the bill of the platypus is perforated with openings that contain sensitive nerve endings. Only recently, however, have biologists concluded on the basis of new evidence that the animal uses its bill to locate its prey while underwater, a conclusion suggested by the fact that the animal's eyes, ears, and nostrils are sealed when it is submerged. The new evidence comes from neurophysiological studies, which have recently revealed that within the pores on the bill there are two kinds of sensory receptors: mechanoreceptors, which are tiny pushrods that respond to tactile pressure, and electroreceptors, which respond to weak electrical fields. Having discovered that tactile stimulation of the pushrods sends nerve impulses to the brain, where they evoke an electric potential over an area of the neocortex much larger than the one stimulated by input from the limbs, eyes, and ears, Bohringer concluded that the bill must be the primary sensory organ for the platypus. Her finding-was supported by studies showing that the bill is extraordinarily sensitive to tactile stimulation: stimulation with a fine glass stylus sent a signal by way of the fifth cranial nerve to the neocortex and from there to the motor cortex. Presumably nerve impulses from the motor cortex then induced a snapping movement of the bill. But Bohringer's investigations did not explain how the animal locates its prey at a distance.

Scheich's neurophysiological studies contribute to solving this mystery. His initial work showed that when a platypus feeds, it swims along, steadily wagging its bill from side to side until prey is encountered. It thereupon switches to searching behavior, characterized by erratic movements of the bill over a small area at the bottom of a body of water, which is followed by homing in on the object and seizing it. In order to determine how the animal senses prey and then distinguishes it from other objects on the bottom, Scheich hypothesized that a sensory system based on electroreception similar to that found in sharks might exist in the platypus.

In further experiments he found he could trigger the switch from patrolling to searching behavior in the platypus by creating a dipole electric field in the water with the aid of a small 1.5-volt battery. The platypus, sensitive to the weak electric current that was created, rapidly oriented toward the battery at a distance of 10 centimeters and sometimes as much as 30 centimeters. Once the battery was detected, the platypus would inevitably attack it as if it were food. Scheich then discovered that the tail flicks of freshwater shrimp, a common prey of the platypus, also produce weak electric fields and elicit an identical response. Scheich and his colleagues believe that it is reasonable to assume that all the invertebrates on which the platypus feed must produce electric fields.

It can be inferred from the passage that during patrolling behavior, the platypus is attempting to

The okapi, a forest mammal of central Africa, has presented zoologists with a number of difficult questions since they first learned of its existence in 1900.

The first was how to classify it.

Because it was horse like in dimension, and bore patches of striped hide similar to a zebra's (a relative of the horse), zoologists first classified it as a member of the horse family.

But further studies showed that, despite okapis' coloration and short necks, their closest relatives were giraffes.

The okapi's rightful place within the giraffe family is confirmed by its skin-covered horns (in males), two-lobed canine teeth, and long prehensile tongue.

The next question was the size of the okapi population.

Because okapis were infrequently captured by hunters, some zoologists believed that they were rare; however, others theorized that their habits simply kept them out of sight.

It was not until 1985, when zoologists started tracking okapis by affixing collars equipped with radio transmitters to briefly captured specimens, that reliable information about okapi numbers and habits began to be collected.

It turns out that while okapis are not as rare as some zoologists suspected, their population is concentrated in an extremely limited chain of forestland in northeastern central Africa, surrounded by savanna.

One reason for their seeming scarcity is that their coloration allows okapis to camouflage themselves even at close range.

Another is that okapis do not travel in groups or with other large forest mammals, and neither frequent open riverbanks nor forage at the borders of clearings, choosing instead to keep to the forest interior.

This is because okapis, unlike any other animal in the central African forest, subsist entirely on leaves: more than one hundred species of plants have been identified as part of their diet, and about twenty of these are preferred.

Okapis never eat one plant to the exclusion of others; even where preferred foliage is abundant, okapis will leave much of it uneaten, choosing to move on and sample other leaves, Because of this, and because of the distribution of their food, okapis engage in individual rather than congregated foraging.

But other questions about okapi behavior arise.

Why, for example, do they prefer to remain within forested areas when many of their favorite plants are found in the open border between forest and savanna?

One possibility is that this is a defense against predators; another is that the okapi was pushed into the forest by competition with other large, hoofed animals, such as the bushbuck and bongo, that specialize on the forest edges and graze them more efficiently, Another question is why okapis are absent from other nearby forest regions that would seem hospitable to them Zoologists theorize that okapis are relicts of an era when forestland was scarce and that they continue to respect those borders even though available forestland has long since expanded.

The function of the third paragraph is toThe function of the third paragraph is to

Philosopher Denise Meyerson views the Critical Legal Studies (CLS) movement as seeking to debunk orthodox legal theory by exposing its contradictions.

However, Meyerson argues that CLS proponents tend to see contradictions where none exist, and that CLS overrates the threat that conflict poses to orthodox legal theory.

According to Meyerson, CLS proponents hold that the existence of conflicting values in the law implies the absence of any uniquely right solution to legal cases.

CLS argues that these conflicting values generate equally plausible but opposing answers to any given legal question, and, consequently, that the choice between the conflicting answers must necessarily be arbitrary or irrational. Meyerson denies that the existence of conflicting values makes a case irresolvable, and asserts that at least some such cases can be resolved by ranking the conflicting values. For example, a lawyer's obligation to preserve a client's confidences may entail harming other parties, thus violating moral principle. This conflict can be resolved if it can be shown that in certain cases the professional obligation overrides ordinary moral obligations.

In addition, says Meyerson, even when the two solutions are equally compelling, it does not follow that the choice between them must necessarily be irrational. On the contrary, a solution that is not rationally required need not be unreasonable. Meyerson concurs with another critic that instead of concentrating on the choice between two compelling alternatives, we should rather reflect on the difference between both of these answers on the one hand, and some utterly unreasonable answer on the othersuch as deciding a property dispute on the basis of which claimant is louder. The acknowledgment that conflicting values can exist, then, does not have the far-reaching implications imputed by CLS; even if some answer to a problem is not the only answer, opting for it can still be reasonable.

Last, Meyerson takes issue with the CLS charge that legal formalism, the belief that there is a quasi-deductive method capable of giving solutions to problems of legal choice, requires objectivism, the belief that the legal process has moral authority. Meyerson claims that showing the law to be unambiguous does not demonstrate its legitimacy: consider a game in which participants compete to steal the item of highest value from a shop; while a person may easily identify the winner in terms of the rules, it does not follow that the person endorses the rules of the game. A CLS scholar might object that legal cases are unlike games, in that one cannot merely apply the rules without appealing to, and therefore endorsing, external considerations of purpose, policy, and value. But Meyerson replies that such considerations may be viewed as part of, not separate from, the rules of the game.

The author's primary purpose in the passage is to

Which one of the following

most accurately describes the organization of the final paragraph in the passage?