Q15

[cyruswhittaker]

Through POE I narrowed down the choices to A and D. I understand why D is wrong: there was no discussion that the scholars excluded the study of thatre history.

However, I'm having difficulty linking A directly to he function of the second paragraph, so any clarification would be very helpful.

[bbirdwell]

Really tough question! (D) is so very tempting...

Regarding (A), who developed the first actos? Chavez, Valdez, and some farm workers. What kind of stuff did they act out? Working conditions, picket lines, strikebreakers...

So, "a motivation"? Get the growers to sign union contracts.
"An aspect of subject matter"? Worldwide boycott.

Essentially, the choice says "explains some of what was going on with the folks involved in the actos." Namely, the union contracts and the boycott.

[cyruswhittaker]

Thank you for your explanation. That helps to clear it up a bit by thinking about the groups involved in developing the actos.

So just to reiterate, is D wrong for the following reason: although the author says that most scholars have marked the efforts as beginning political activism in the 1960s, that doesn't mean that they have not focused at all on theater history?

[bbirdwell]

Yeah. The statement "most scholars..." simply says they believe Chicano activism began in the 60s, which says nothing at all about theater. Otherwise, (D) is a very appealing choice.

[sweliz]

Just to clarify, the question is asking us the function of the second paragraph, not sentence, right?

I don't know if it's just my version, but in my June 2010 PT, Q15 asks "The second sentence of the passage functions..."

I was very confused because of that, and was trying to find an answer that worked for the second sentence of the passage, ie in the first paragraph. I'm surprised LSAC didn't catch this mistake - I'm sure lots of people were thrown off by it and selected the wrong answer.

[bbirdwell]

It's not a mistake -- the question is asking about the second sentence of the first paragraph. The answer choices are tough! It's a difficult problem in part because, though the question is about a sentence in the first paragraph, we have to know about the second paragraph in order to make sense of some of the choices.

[sweliz]

I see the connection now with A and the second sentence! Thanks!

[legalrabbithole]

I've been staring at this question for a while, and it's just not clicking. Please help!

Just to make sure, they are asking about the sentence that begins with "By 1965, Chavez's United Farm Workers Union gained..." right? I just don't see how that motivates actos AND is an important aspect of actos.

I actually debated between D and E...

[kbishop]

On my first reading of the passage, there seemed to only be a large disconnect between the first two sentences and the remainder. So Question 15 got me, too.

I chose (E) because the passage included multiple references to the debate as to the centrality of Valdez toward actos and theater. But that discussion seems to be far more relevant to the third sentence of the passage, not the second, so (E) should be incorrect. For a clearer reason why (E) is wrong, that sentence neither mentions Valdez, theater, nor historians.

(D) is a tempting answer, but the passage is about the development of Mexican-American theater, not about how historians have treated its development.

Upon re-reading the passage, I believe that the rationale that LSAC wanted to test that leads to (A) is the claim:

"if Chaves and the United Farm Works Union had not acted, then Valdez and the actos would not have...." something, either been developed at all, or not become significant. In other words, the strikes, according to the passage, were a critical cause of Valdez to create the actos genre, and a source of their subject matter.

[vik]

For questions of type 15, there is a direct analog in LR. What role does this sentence play in the stimulus. in these RC questions, look to see how is the sentence related to the passage as a whole.

In the passage, this sentence introduces the social background that led to actos. Hence A is correct.