Thank you for making our day, Ananya! Congratulations on the absolutely beautiful score. I'm thrilled that we've been able to help a bit -- thank you so much for reaching out with such a kind post. Good luck with your applications, and let us know where you land for grad school!

Hey Ananya, can you please mention what all resources you used to get that score?

Gmat club- you can find official LSAT passages

Hey Ananya! First of all congrats on the great score! :D Can you please share whether you prepared for RC other than these videos? and if so, how did you prepare and from where? Thanks in advance for your reply :)

So glad to hear you found the video helpful!!

Thank you for this question Kanishk! You raise a really good point - answer (C) does not directly mention marriages between Californianas and non-Hispanic traders. So how does it support Castaneda’s explanation of the “stereotypical plot?” Well, Castaneda thinks that the law which ensured Californianas inheritance and property rights explains the stereotypical plot. In other words, if Californianas were more likely to inherit valuable property because of this law, this could make them attractive as spouses to ambitious traders. But just because this law was in place doesn’t necessarily mean that Californianas really DID inherit valuable property. What if the properties they inherited weren’t all that valuable? Or what if some other legal issue interfered with their inheritance? If that were the case, it would weaken Castaneda’s explanation. Notice that (C) deals with this potential issue. Because if Californianas owned “large and valuable properties,” this suggests that they really did benefit from inheritance rights, and that they possessed wealth which might attract ambitious merchants. This certainly doesn’t prove that Castaneda’s explanation was correct. And I don’t love the fact that it doesn’t mention non-hispanic traders. On the other hand, since it does provide some support, we should hold on to (C). Let’s now examine (A). As you point out, (A) does mention non-Hispanic traders, as the stereotypical plot does. But does it support the idea that they sought to marry Californianas because of their wealth? To draw that conclusion, we’d need to make some leaps. First, notice that (C) doesn’t actually tell us whether non-Hispanic merchants found businesses highly profitable when California was a territory. It just tells us these businesses were MORE profitable when California was a territory. In other words, it gives us a relative comparison, but we don’t really know if these businesses were really profitable (in absolute terms) when California was a territory. But even if businesses were really, really profitable for non-Hispanic traders when California was a territory, it’s unclear how this relates to Californianas. Did Californianas lose their inheritance rights when California became a state? Notice the passage doesn’t address this, so we really can’t speculate on this. Additionally, would marrying an elite Californiana cause a merchant to have a profitable business? That would require a bit of a leap. Just because a merchant married a wealthy woman wouldn’t necessarily make his business more profitable. It might make him richer, but we can’t conclude that being richer would make his business more profitable. For all those reasons, (A) requires too many leaps to support Castaneda’s explanation, so we can eliminate it. And while (C) certainly doesn’t prove that Castaneda’s explanation was correct, it does provide support, which makes it a better answer. Thanks again for this question, Kanishk. Let me know if that helps, or if there’s any other way we can help at all!

​@@GMATNinjaTutoring​Thank you for the detailed explanation. I was very confused initially on why A was not the better choice, but your explanations sheds a lot of light.Thanks again!

Hi ADKI, Thank you for this comment! You’re correct that a “plot” generally refers to a fictional story. But a fictional plot can have a basis in reality, even if the plot itself is not strictly speaking “true.” In fact, that is exactly what Castaneda is arguing here. More specifically, Castaneda thinks that a real-life law influenced the fictional (or made-up) plots created by male, non-hispanic novelists. Put another way, Castaneda thinks the law created a certain situation (i.e. elite Californiana’s were given certain property and inheritance rights), and this law inspired novelists to write plots about non-hispanic merchants seeking to marry elite Californianas for their wealth. Returning to Question 3: the right answer should provide support for Castaneda’s explanation of the “stereotypical plot” mentioned in the passage. Note that answer choice C tells us that some elite Californianas owned large and valuable properties. If this were true, it suggests that the the property laws Castaneda mentioned really DID cause certain elite Californianas to become wealthy. Since Castaneda’s argument about stereotypical plots rests on the idea that elite Californianas had wealth that made them attractive to certain ambitious merchants, answer choice (C) supports this argument, which makes it correct. Thanks and let me know if that helps!

Great question! As you suggest, the passages implies that the "women mentioned in line 2" are opposed to the "radical patriarchalism" of Robert Filmer. And because Filmer was associated with the Royalist side, it's odd that many of these women were associated with this Royalist side (as opposed to the Parliamentarian side). So what's wrong with (D)? Question 2: The passage suggests which of the following about the seventeenth-century English women mentioned in line 2? D: Their views on family organization and women's political rights were diametrically opposed to those of both Royalist and Parliamentarian ideology. Well, as you point out, the passage tells us that "there may have been no consistent differences between Royalists and Parliamentarians on issues of family organization and women’s political rights." So does that mean that the Parliamentarians were also into "radical patriarchalism?" Because if they were, then the feminists would definitely oppose them, right? In which case (D) would be correct? The problem is, this line doesn't really mean that the Parliamentarians actually were into patriarchalism. Notice that the previous line tells us that "Some historians have questioned the facile equation of Royalist ideology with Filmerian patriarchalism." So basically, some historians think the Royalists were NOT really into patriarchalism. And if the Royalists weren't into patriarchalism, then maybe both side had the same views on women's rights (i.e. there were "no consistent differences"). In other words, according to some historians, it COULD be that neither the Royalists nor the Parliamentarians were that into patriarchalism, in which case the feminists wouldn't really oppose either side. So based on that, (D) can't be right. Put another way, if the Royalists were into patriarchalism, then the feminists should oppose them. But some historians have suggested that neither side was really into patriarchalism, so it COULD be that the feminists didn't really oppose either the Royalists or the Parliamentarians. But the passage never suggests that both sides were into patriarchalism, so the feminists wouldn't oppose both sides. But what about (E)? E: Historians would be less puzzled if more of them were identified with the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil Wars. Well, the passage tells us it's "odd" that these feminists were almost all identified with Royalist side. So if more of them were associated with the Parliamentarian side, it would be less "odd" (i.e. less puzzling). So (E) is correct. Thanks for this question, and let me know if that helps!

Thanks for this Sri lanka! Is it possible you were asking about Q2 in passage 2? If so, here are some thoughts on D vs E. Let’s start with (D): D) Their views on family organization and women's political rights were diametrically opposed to those of both Royalist and Parliamentarian ideology. The passage doesn’t tell us what views the Parliamentarians held on family organization and women’s political rights. Since we don’t have enough information to say whether (D) is true, it must be wrong. Let’s now consider (E): E) Historians would be less puzzled if more of them were identified with the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil Wars. The passage tells us that historians are surprised about a certain historical fact - namely, that the forerunners of feminism were almost all associated with the Royalists, not the Parliamentarians. This is odd because the Royalists were associated with non-feminist (i.e. patriarchal) ideas. So if more of the women mentioned in line 2 were identified with the Parliamentarian side (i.e. if fewer were associated with the Royalist side) historians would be less puzzled. I hope that helps!

You can think of the paragraph summaries as more of an art than a formula, and two different readers will, of course, come up with somewhat different summaries. That part is fine. The important thing is for those summaries to be rooted 100% in the big picture of the passage -- they should be anchored in the author's purpose and the various points of view that might be presented in the passage. If those summaries turn into a blizzard of disconnected details -- or if they feature only a key phrase that doesn't actually encompass the main purpose of a paragraph, or if they include inaccurate statements -- that's a problem. Beyond that, it's not necessarily a bad thing to see some variation in the phrasing of the summaries. Alex and I might summarize things slightly differently, but you'll always see the author's purpose and point of view at the forefront of our analysis, no matter what. I hope that helps a bit!

Thank you for the kind words, Rhea! I'm thrilled that we've been able to help a bit with the video series. If you're interested in learning more about why we're big fans of the LSAT, this article might help: www.gmatninja.com/gmat/articles/verbal/5-reasons-why-the-lsat-can-help-your-gmat-score. If you're just interested in getting your hands on some LSAT tests to help you practice RC and CR, any of the books of official LSAT tests will work. Here's one example: amzn.to/3Vhjjpw. There's also a free test on the LSAT website if you'd like to try that first. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

Hello Rhea, do you have Manhattan Gmat mock test series access?

That's a great question! What does it mean to qualify a claim? In fact, to "qualify" a claim means to express some reservations about that claim. Or, put another way, to modify and weaken a claim. For instance, let's say that a fitness instructor makes the statement that "all exercise is healthy." I might object by saying "but if you lift really heavy weights, that might hurt your back. That's not healthy!" The fitness instructor might then reply by qualifying her original claim. She might say, "Okay, not all exercise is healthy. Rather, exercise that is done in a responsible way is healthy." In the above case, you could say that the fitness instructor's second statement "qualifies" her first statement. That is, she modifies and weakens her original claim. She's no longer saying that "all exercise is healthy," but merely that "responsible exercise is healthy." She qualified her original claim. Notice that the author doesn't qualify (i.e. modify and weaken) the claim that patriarchalism formed the basis of royalist ideology. In fact, the author presents Filmer to support this idea. For that reason, (B) is incorrect. I hope that helps!

Thanks for this question Rahul! As you suggest, if answer choice (A) provided an alternative explanation for why Royalist women became feminists, that would make it a compelling answer. Gallagher thinks that Royalist women became feminists because their "ideology of absolute monarchy" led them to the idea of a "woman's sovereign self," which in turn led them to feminism. But as you point out, if we had an alternative explanation, that would undermine Gallagher's explanation. The problem is, (A) doesn't provide a very convincing alternative explanation. Would better education in 17th-century England lead someone to become a feminist? We really don't know. It's not impossible, but neither answer choice (A) nor anything in the passage give us any reason to think "better education" would cause feminist thinking. What exactly would better education in 17th-century England entail? If it included patriarchal ideas (like those of Robert Filmer), it could actually be anti-feminist. Or maybe it wouldn't address the issue of feminism at all? Basically, since we don't know what the education mentioned in answer choice (A) entails, the above possibilities would all be equally likely. So we can't conclude from answer choice (A) that more education would make Royalist women more feminist. And for that reason, we can eliminate (A). Thanks again for the question, and let me know if that helps clarify things!

Good question! To get started, let's ask ourselves -- what exactly is this patriarchalism that Cavendish was challenging? Going to the first paragraph, we see that patriarchalism “equates family and kingdom and asserts the divinely ordained absolute power of the king and, by analogy, of the male head of the household.” You’re correct that Cavendish does NOT challenge the idea of a monarch itself. Rather, she opposes the idea that the “male head of the household” is like a king. Instead, she insists that she is “self-sufficient,” not a “satellite orbiting a dominant male planet.” So while Cavendish doesn’t challenge the idea of a monarch, she does challenge the patriarchal idea that the male head of the household is like a king I hope that helps!

Here is the url for our article on reading non-fiction to help improve reading comp performance: www.gmatninja.com/gmat/articles/verbal/reading-nonfiction-to-improve-rc If you scroll to the bottom of the article, some specific resources are mentioned. As a bonus, The New Yorker Magazine tends have densely written articles on a wide variety of topics, so you definitely can't go wrong there either. Thanks for checking out the video, and let us know if that helps at all!

Thanks for this question, Sri lanka! For the last question in passage 1, why is (A) wrong? Overall, I’d say (A) is simply too broad. Put another way, the passage is more narrowly focused than (A) indicates. How so? First, as you say, the passage is specifically about literary depictions, not depictions in general. Second, it’s not about depictions of Mexican Americans generally, but specifically about Mexican women living in territorial California (i.e. Californianas). And lastly, the passage is specifically interested in how a piece of history has influenced a specific, fictional plot about Californianas -- not on depictions of Mexican Americans generally. For those reasons, (A) is too broad to capture the primary purpose of the passage. But what about (C)? Notice that (C) is much more focused. The “literary stereotype” in (C) refers to the stereotypical plot discussed in paragraph 2. And the passage is indeed focused on describing the historical origins of this “literary stereotype.” Comparing these answer choices, we see that (A) is too broad. The passage is actually focused on a more narrow issue. Since (C) captures more accurately the narrow issue that the passage discusses, it's correct. I hope that helps!

Great question! As you suggest, (A) is a more general answer than (C). More specifically, (A) refers to the “depiction of Mexican Americans in the nineteenth century,” whereas (C) is specifically referring to the literary stereotype about Californianas. So does that make (A) better? Actually, (A) is wrong because it is TOO general. Keep in mind that the purpose of the first paragraph is to present Castaneda’s research (i.e. literary portrayals of Mexican Americans), while the purpose of the second paragraph is to present one of Castaneda’s findings (i.e. a certain law explains a literary stereotype). While the passage does discuss unflattering portrayals of Mexicans, this is only mentioned as a contrast to the main point about Californianas. In other words, unflattering portrayals of Mexicans are only mentioned to explain why the literary stereotype is “noteworthy.” Long story short, while the passage does mention unflattering portrayals of Mexicans, (A) is just too general. The focus of the passage is more specifically the literary stereotype which Castaneda explained through her historical research. So since it’s too general, (A) is incorrect. Another thought - notice that (A) talks about depictions of “Mexican Americans.” But paragraph two talks specifically about unflattering portrayals of “Mexicans,” which is not exactly the same. That provides another reason to get rid of (A). Thanks again for the question, and let me know if that helps at all!

As usual, everything from the GMATNinja team is gold! I understand exactly what you mean here. If I were to take something away from this discuss and apply it more generically, are there any markers for me to tell when something is TOO general? In other words, I was under the impression that “primary purpose” questions are about summarizing the whole text as best as I can. It now seems like “primary purpose” is (and there’s going to be a lot of hand waving in the next line…) kinda what I would remember about this passage a month later if I were to recount it for my friend. Is that about right?

I feel exactly the same. Talking about the stereotypical plot was one idea in the passage which overall talked about the literary portrayal of Mexican women. Option 1 should be right.

Thank you for this question, Ambar! To analyze question 4 of passage 1, let's start by considering the general purpose of each paragraph. Purpose of Paragraph 1: To present a scholar (Castaneda) who uses women's studies and Mexican American history to examine literary portrayals of Mexican women. Purpose of Paragraph 2: To show how, according to Castaneda, a piece of Mexican American history can explain a stereotypical literary plot about Mexican women. The piece of Mexican American history referred to in paragraph 2 is the law mentioned in paragraph one, which protected the economic position of Californianas. According to Castaneda, this law explains the stereotypical literary plot of an ambitious trader wanting to marry an elite Californiana. In other words, the law protected the inheritance rights of Californianas, ensuring their right to inherit property. And if they inherited property, that could make them attractive to ambitious traders looking for a spouse. All of that would explain the stereotypical literary plot of "an ambitious non-hispanic merchant or trader desirous of marrying an elite Californiana." Let's now consider question 4, answer choice (E): 4. The primary purpose of the passage is to E. evaluate both sides in a scholarly debate about a prominent literary stereotype So what's wrong with (E)? Well, the passage does talk about a literary stereotype. But it does not talk about a scholarly debate on this stereotype. In other words, we don't get two different points of view on this literary stereotype. Rather, we just get one point of view (Castaneda's point of view). Since there is no scholarly debate that the author evaluates, (E) must be wrong. Let's now consider (C): C. describe the historical origins of a literary stereotype As you say, the passage examines the literary portrayal of Mexican women. In doing so, it discusses a "stereotypical literary plot." In other words, it discusses a "literary stereotype," as (C) says. But does it discuss the historical origins of this literary stereotype? Absolutely. It talks about the piece of Mexican American history (the law mentioned in paragraph one), which Castaneda believes holds the explanation for the "stereotypical literary plot" (i.e. a "literary stereotype"). For that reason, (C) is correct. One other thought on this question - as you say, the passage is exploring the literary portrayal of Mexican women. And yet, answer choice (C) talks about a “literary stereotype.” Does that make (C) wrong? To answer that, let’s consider exactly what “literary stereotype” the question is referring to. Based on the passage, the phrase “literary stereotype” must be referring to the “stereotypical plot” mentioned in paragraph 2. In other words, the “literary stereotype” is in fact a literary portrayal of Mexican women. So even though (C) doesn’t explicitly say “portrayal of Mexican women,” that’s exactly what the phrase “literary stereotype” is referring to, which confirms that (C) is correct. Thanks again for your question , and let me know if that helps at all!

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Is option C better than option A just because of its mention of "literary"? The passage also mentions historical influences of why Mexican Americans are depicted unfavourably (to gain support for Mexican American war), which is outside of the scope suggested by the "literary stereotype" in Option C. I feel that Option C captures only the part of the passage about the stereotype while Option A captures other historical influences mentioned in the passage too.

That's a good question! Your score on the GMAT verbal section depends on the number of questions you miss, but also on their difficulty. For instance, missing an "easy" questions would hurt your score more than missing a really "hard" question -- so the impact of getting 3/4 correct would partly depend on the difficulty of the question you missed. For more on how the GMAT Focus is scored, feel free to check out our article at this URL: www.gmatninja.com/gmat/articles/basics/how-to-calculate-gmat-scores Thanks again for the question, and let me know if that helps!

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Thanks for the explanation. I was specifically asking for the hard passages. The ones we did above. If you get 3/4 right on all the passages, does that keep you in the high RC score bandwidth? or takes you down to medium score range?

Yes, definitely. The new GMAT Focus isn't available until November 7, so you'll still be doing the old version of the GMAT in October. At the moment, we still don't know exactly when the "old" GMAT will be phased out, but it will be available until sometime in Q1 2024 -- so even if you decide to retake after October, Sentence Correction could still be useful if you decide to stick with the current GMAT. For more on the new GMAT Focus Edition, check out this article, which we'll update with the latest information as it becomes available: www.gmatninja.com/gmat/articles/basics/gmat-focus-edition-changes. I hope that helps a bit, and have fun studying!

@@GMATNinjaTutoring People who have taken the old version of GMAT have an advantage during the selection process over the GMAT than those who have taken the Focus version?

@@sahithyadevaraj144 No, that's definitely not a thing. Schools aren't going to give priority to one test over the other, so your job is just to take the test that makes the most sense for you, and don't worry about anything else.

@@GMATNinjaTutoring Thank you

Thank you for this question, Varsha! You raise a good point - the passage never tells us the time period that Catherine Gallagher is from. We know that she has opinions about 17th Century women, but we don’t when Catherine Gallagher herself lived, so we definitely don’t want to assume that she lived in the 17th Century. We do know, on the other hand, that Margaret Cavendish, the “notoriously eccentric author,” lived in the 17th Century (i.e. from “1626-1673”). Hopefully that addressed your concern, but I apologize if I missed your point! Please feel free to share any additional questions you have, and I’d be more than happy to clarify if I can. Thanks again for the question!

All good questions! Let's start with the question of why historians would be less puzzled if more feminists were associated with the Parliamentarian side. As you say, the passage doesn't tell us much about the Parliamentarian side. Were they closer to the feminist perspective? Were just as bad as the Royalists? Notice the author addresses this exact question in paragraph 1: "...there may have been no consistent differences between Royalists and Parliamentarians on issues of family organization and women’s political rights, but in that case one would expect early feminists to be equally divided between the two sides." So author acknowledges that the Parliamentarian and Royalist sides might not have been different in their ideas about women. But if that were the case, you'd expect the feminists to be equally divided between the Parliamentarian and Royalists sides. In other words, if both sides were equally against women's rights, feminists shouldn't be drawn to one side more than the other. But if they absolutely had to pick a side, you'd expect them to be evenly split between both. But...that isn't the case. The puzzling fact remains that more feminists were associated with the Royalist side. However, for the reasons outlined above, if more of them were associated with the Parliamentarian side, that would be less puzzling. Because even if both sides were equally bad on women's rights, why would more feminists side with the Royalists? Let's move on to the question about Cavendish and patriarchalism. For starters - what exactly is this patriarchalism that Cavendish was supposedly challenging? Going to the first paragraph, we see that patriarchalism “equates family and kingdom and asserts the divinely ordained absolute power of the king and, by analogy, of the male head of the household.” You’re correct that Cavendish doesn’t challenge the idea of a monarch itself. Rather, she opposes the idea that the “male head of the household” is like a king. Instead, she insists that she is “self-sufficient,” not a “satellite orbiting a dominant male planet.” So while Cavendish doesn’t challenge the idea of a monarch, she does challenge the patriarchal idea that the male head of the household is like a king. For that reason, we can eliminate (B). I hope that helps!

You raise an interesting question -- if "very few marriages between Hispanic women and non-Hispanic men in nineteenth-century territorial California have actually been documented," what does that tell us? Well, it's hard to draw any solid conclusions from this. Does it mean that very few of these marriages ACTUALLY took place? Not necessarily. Maybe they did take place and they just weren't documented. From another angle -- if few of the marriages were actually documented, does that mean a lot of them actually DID take place? That would also be a leap. We wouldn't want to conclude that because few were documented, a lot of undocumented ones occurred. Maybe few were documented simply because few actually occurred? One more perspective, in case it helps -- notice that (B) is not saying that "few OF the marriages" were documented, which might imply that more were undocumented than documented. Rather, it simply tells us that few such marriages were documented period, without any information about how many were undocumented. Bottom line, we can conclude that answer choice (B) fails to provide any evidence to support the idea that marriages between Hispanic women and non-Hispanic men occurred with much frequency. For that reason, it fails to provide support for Castaneda's explanation of the stereotypical plot, and we can eliminate it. I hope that helps!