Reading Comp Macro Questions

Macro Questions deal with the entire passage. You’ll typically get one or two of these questions with every passage.

This is the second of a series of articles about Reading Comprehension Questions on the LSAT test. The series includes the following articles:

Reading Comp Macro Questions

Because they have to be wide enough to include the entire passage, the right answers have to be fairly reasonable in tone and scope. Many wrong answers are easily eliminated because the tone is too extreme or the scope is too narrow.

Sample macro-question stems:

Which one of the following best states the main purpose of the passage?
The main idea of the passage is…
The author of the passage is most likely a…
The passage is most likely a…

For the passage we just read, you might get a macro question like the following:

1. Which one of the following best expresses the author’s main idea?

(A)       The world population will increase to nine billion in the next 50 years causing issues of poverty and malnutrition.
(B)       Farmers are overly concerned with the negative aspects of agricultural technology and should be more open to change.
(C)       An increased need for food production has caused agricultural workers to mistrust technology.
(D)       Continued innovation in agricultural technology is a necessity to deal with the increasing needs of food production and environmental overuse.
(E)       Genetically-modified crops present the only reasonable solution to our current crisis in food production.

Try your hand at answering this question before moving to the explanation.

The right answer is…

(D) Continued innovation in agricultural technology is a necessity to deal with the increasing needs of food production and environmental overuse.

This answer choice is reasonable in tone, matches the scope and almost exactly matches our roadmap. In other words, it contains each paragraph topic without going too far in scope or using extreme language. Perfectly reasonable for a Reading Comprehension answer.

Now let’s analyze the wrong answer choices, all of which are common in Reading Comprehension macro questions.

(A) The world population will increase to nine billion in the next 50 years causing issues of poverty and malnutrition.

This question type is focused on a particular detail in the first paragraph. The LSAT is trying to tempt you by offering you something you might recognize directly from the passage. A macro or main idea question can never be answered with a detail.

(B) Farmers are exceedingly concerned with the negative aspects of agricultural technology and should be more open to change.

This answer choice is also focused only on the scope of a single paragraph – the third paragraph. It then goes on to distort tone and scope. Tone is distorted by the word “exceedingly,” since the paragraph points out that farmers have been skeptical of technology throughout history and doesn’t discuss an increase. Scope is distorted because the paragraph points out farmers’ skepticism but doesn’t go as far as saying the should be more open to change.

(C) An increased need for food production has caused agricultural workers to mistrust technology.

Again, for similar reasons as (B), this answer choice goes too far beyond the scope of the third paragraph. The test is trying to trick you by tying the main idea to an element in the final paragraph to make the answer choice seem like it covers the entire passage. We don’t know that food production is tied in any fashion to “agricultural workers” and their mistrust of technology.

(E) Genetically-modified crops present the only reasonable solution to our current crisis in food production.

Again, the LSAT is picking up on a particular detail of the final paragraph in the hopes that you will think it was the main idea of the entire passage. Thanks to our handy outline, we know better. Besides, the tone is wrong since the author doesn’t use words like “only reasonable solution,” in the passage.

Tips for Reading Comp Macro Questions

The right answer for a macro questions is usually reasonable and boring. When you’re faced with a macro question, you are looking for the main idea of the entire passage. It is almost always reasonably phrased (avoid words like “never,” or “only”) and is generally broad enough to describe the passage as a whole, not just one or two paragraphs.

Prephrase your own main idea. If you’ve followed the TestSherpa method closely, you will already have the outline and main idea ready as a prephrase. By having the topic, scope and main idea in mind before you even read the answer choices, you will be less tempted by the wrong answer choices.

Eliminate the wrong answers. Typically, the wrong answers to a macro or main idea question will have one or more of the following characteristics:

Too specific to certain details or paragraphs (scope too narrow)
Distortions that tie part of the main idea to something that is out of scope or extreme
Extreme language is usually wrong (unless the author is extreme in tone, which is very rare in Reading Comprehension)
Choices that go beyond the scope of the passage even if they’re in the same topic

Now that you’ve learned how to handle Reading Comp Macro Questions, let’s look at Reading Comp Inference Questions.

Reading Comp Detail Questions

LSAT Grouping Questions

Logic Games Questions