Q26

[theaether]

Crossed out A and then went on to pick E for this one. Argh. Reason? Because I saw "To overcome this fear, participants in the group's deliberations need to be..."

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

Ah, I can totally see that. I'm sure that played into how they designed that passage/question! Cruel.

[hanselle.c]

I also got caught b/w A and E, and chose E. But can someone please elaborate as to why A is correct, and E incorrect?

Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

One thing that makes RC questions such as this easier for me is that there's a very typical pattern when the question stem uses the wording
"in order to"
"serves to"
"primarily to"

This type of question normally asks about an example the author brought up in order to illustrate/make a broader point.

The correct answer is almost always a paraphrase of the sentence that comes BEFORE the example (~80% of the time) or AFTER the example (~20% of the time).

Don't get tunnel vision and only read about the specific example/mention the question stem is referring to.

When you see that wording, they're asking WHY did the author say something? The answer is not within the example/mention, but rather it's one of the bookend ideas that either sets up why the author is mentioning something or gives you the author's takeaway idea after he's mentioned something.

You can also expect that the correct answer will normally reinforce the main point of that paragraph, but will not go beyond it.

So when I see them ask, "why did the author bring up X in line 5", I initially read the sentence before line 5 to see if it feels like a setup.

In this case it does. The author makes a broad claim that group cohesion is generally a good thing, and then supports it with line 5.

That's why I would like and pick (A). It sounds like a paraphrase of the previous sentence, and it reinforces what we're talking about in the first paragraph.

However, (E) is a very tempting answer here. It does sound a lot like the ideas that follow line 5. We might question whether the ideas that follow are really a recipe for how to OVERCOME the effects of low cohesion or are really suggesting that we AVOID low cohesion altogether.

But we could also consider the big picture to eliminate this answer.

The passage as a whole is about the debilitating effects of high group cohesion. In that context, the first paragraph is just laying the groundwork for the subsequent discussion of how high group cohesion might be just as problematic as low group cohesion.

I hope that helps. Let me know if you have lingering questions.

[AasimY312]

When asked about the function of an example, I try to think of it in the context of surrounding information (usually includes the entire paragraph to be safe)

Here, the low cohesion can cause compliance out of fear. Later in the paragraph, the author states that high cohesion makes such self-censorship less likely. Therefore, the tool of the former is to help emphasize the latter through contrast. This is loosely captured in (A). I'd say answer choice (E) might be considered a "secondary" purpose...