The English who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries inhabited

Question

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Passage # 128, Date : 05-APR-2019
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The English who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries inhabited those colonies that would later become the United States shared a common political vocabulary with the English in England. Steeped as they were in the English political language, these colonials failed to observe that their experience in America had given the words a significance quite different from that accepted by the English with whom they debated; in fact, they claimed that they were more loyal to the English political tradition than were the English in England.

In many respects the political institutions of England were reproduced in these American colonies. By the middle of the eighteenth century, all of these colonies except four were headed by Royal Governors appointed by the King and perceived as bearing a relation to the people of the colony similar to that of the King to the English people. Moreover, each of these colonies enjoyed a representative assembly, which was consciously modeled, in powers and practices, after the English Parliament. In both England and these colonies, only property holders could vote.

Nevertheless, though English and colonial institutions were structurally similar, attitudes toward those institutions differed. For example, English legal development from the early seventeenth century had been moving steadily toward the absolute power of Parliament. The most unmistakable sign of this tendency was the legal assertion that the King was subject to the law. Together with this resolute denial of the absolute right of kings went the assertion that Parliament was unlimited in its power: it could change even the Constitution by its ordinary acts of legislation. By the eighteenth century the English had accepted the idea that the parliamentary representatives of the people were omnipotent.

The citizens of these colonies did not look upon the English Parliament with such fond eyes, nor did they concede that their own assemblies possessed such wide powers. There were good historical reasons for this. To the English the word “constitution” meant the whole body of law and legal custom formulated since the beginning of the kingdom, whereas to these colonials a constitution was a specific written document, enumerating specific powers. This distinction in meaning can be traced to the fact that the foundations of government in the various colonies were written charters granted by the Crown. These express authorizations to govern were tangible, definite things. Over the years these colonials had often repaired to the charters to justify themselves in the struggle against tyrannical governors or officials of the Crown. More than a century of government under written constitutions convinced these colonists of the necessity for and efficacy of protecting their liberties against governmental encroachment by explicitly defining all governmental powers in a document.   1 
 C 
 1. Which one of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?

(A) The colonials and the English mistakenly thought that they shared a common political vocabulary.
(B) The colonials and the English shared a variety of institutions.
(C) The colonials and the English had conflicting interpretations of the language and institutional structures that they shared.
(D) Colonial attitudes toward English institutions grew increasingly hostile in the eighteenth century.
(E) Seventeenth-century English legal development accounted for colonial attitudes toward constitutions.

2 
 D 
 2. The passage supports all of the following statements about the political conditions present by the middle of the eighteenth century in the American colonies discussed in the passage EXCEPT:

(A) Colonials who did not own property could not vote.
(B) All of these colonies had representative assemblies modeled after the British Parliament.
(C) Some of these colonies had Royal Governors.
(D) Royal Governors could be removed from office by colonial assemblies.
(E) In these colonies, Royal Governors were regarded as serving a function like that of a king.

3 
 C 
 3. The passage implies which one of the following about English kings prior to the early seventeenth century?

(A) They were the source of all law.
(B) They frequently flouted laws made by Parliament.
(C) Their power relative to that of Parliament was considerably greater than it was in the eighteenth century.
(D) They were more often the sources of legal reform than they were in the eighteenth century.
(E) They had to combat those who believed that the power of Parliament was absolute.

4 
 C 
 4. The author mentions which one of the following as evidence for the eighteenth-century English attitude toward Parliament?

(A) The English had become uncomfortable with institutions that could claim absolute authority.
(B) The English realized that their interests were better guarded by Parliament than by the King.
(C) The English allowed Parliament to make constitutional changes by legislative enactment.
(D) The English felt that the King did not possess the knowledge that would enable him to rule responsibly.
(E) The English had decided that it was time to reform their representative government.

5 
 E 
 5. The passage implies that the colonials discussed in the passage would have considered which one of the following to be a source of their debates with England?

(A) their changed use of the English political vocabulary
(B) English commitment to parliamentary representation
(C) their uniquely English experience
(D) their refusal to adopt any English political institutions
(E) their greater loyalty to the English political traditions

6 
 C 
 6. According to the passage, the English attitude toward the English Constitution differed from the colonial attitude toward constitutions in that the English regarded their Constitution as

(A) the legal foundation of the kingdom
(B) a document containing a collection of customs
(C) a cumulative corpus of legislation and legal traditions
(D) a record alterable by royal authority
(E) an unchangeable body of governmental powers

7 
 E 
 7. The primary purpose of the passage is to

(A) expose the misunderstanding that has characterized descriptions of the relationship between seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England and certain of its American colonies
(B) suggest a reason for England’s treatment of certain of its American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
(C) settle an ongoing debate about the relationship between England and certain of its American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
(D) interpret the events leading up to the independence of certain of England’s American colonies in the eighteenth century
(E) explain an aspect of the relationship between England and certain of its American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Source:   LSAT Official PrepTest 9   ( October 1993 ) 
 Difficulty Level:   700

aaggarwal191 · Answer

got 6/7 but i wanted to know the about question 5 . Could you please explain

jaisrajat · Answer

Even I got incorrect, but when I read the passage again, I understand why my answer was incorrect.

The last sentence of the passage states
 Steeped as they were in the English political language, these colonials failed to observe that their experience in America had given the words a significance quite different from that accepted by the English with whom they debated; in fact, they claimed that they were more loyal to the English political tradition than were the English in England."

The latter part of the sentence clearly mentions the reason about the debate " they claimed that they were more loyal to the English political tradition than were the English in England. "

I hope you got the reasoning.
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Kudos encourages active discussion.

jaisrajat · Answer

Can anyone please explain the passage in simple words.
Thanks in advance.

aaggarwal191 · Answer

thankyou for the explanation. Could you please tell what will be difficulty of this passage

jotika86 · Answer

explain the first question

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

1. Which one of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?

Difficulty Level:   550

Explanation

...and no sooner said than done, we are rewarded with a point for  choice (C)  in this main idea question. This question is probably one that you could have answered correctly after reading  Paragraph 1  and a cursory skim of the rest, but even if you waited till late to answer it, the choice of  (C)  should be pretty much Q.E.D.

Many answers to main idea questions go wrong because they’re too broad or too narrow in scope — particularly the latter. Some wrong choices will refer to only a small segment of the passage, while others won’t seem to refer to the specific content of the passage at all.

Choice (B)  , for instance, sums up  Paragraph 2  only, while Colonial attitudes, the subject of  (D) , come up only in  Paragraph 4  (not to mention the fact that  “increasing 18th century hostility”  is something we carry with us from our outside knowledge of the American Revolution, not from the passage itself).  (A) and (E) , meanwhile, contradict or at least distort the text.  Contrary to (A) , the colonists and English did too share a common political vocabulary, though they differed over the meanings of the political terms they shared. And  contrary to (E) , as  Paragraph 4  suggests, colonial attitudes toward constitutions were influenced by the contents of the charters granted to the colonies by England, not by English legal developments in the 17th century.

Answer: C

Hope it helps

Diya52 · Answer

Can someone explain Q6 and why for Q7, choice A is not correct?

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explanation

6. According to the passage, the English attitude toward the English Constitution differed from the colonial attitude toward constitutions in that the English regarded their Constitution as

Difficulty Level:   700

Explanation

We know that the issue of a constitution comes up in  Paragraph 4  only, so you might well want to skim the relevant paragraph before proceeding back to the answer choices. How did the English attitude toward their Constitution differ from the colonists’ attitude toward constitutions in general? Signals like  “whereas”  ( l. 36 ) and  “This distinction in meaning”  ( l. 38 ) pinpoint the location, and probably anyone who’s ever taken Civics 101 was not surprised to learn that the English constitution is an unwritten set of precedents and conventions, while the colonists wanted the thing on paper. The former is summed up in  (C) , of course, and notice once again that right answers tend to use paraphrase to put a bit of a spin on the passage text, although you’re hardly going out on a limb by deciding that  “a cumulative corpus of legislation and legal traditions”  is a pretty close equivalent of  “the whole body of law and legal custom,”  l. 35.

That notwithstanding, many students erred and chose  (A) , because the rhetoric just cited, describing the English Constitution, certainly sounds lofty enough to justify  (A) . However, noting that that body of laws and customs dates back to the beginning of the kingdom is not to say that it was seen as the  “legal foundation”  of that kingdom. Indeed, the very fact that the English were willing to allow Parliament to change the Constitution suggests that they did not view it as such.

(B) , a limp distillation of  (C) , leaves out the entire legal issue. (As worded,  (B)  describes a copy of Emily Post’s Etiquette more accurately than any constitution.) Finally, that 18th-century Englishmen acknowledged Parliament’s right to change the English Constitution indicates that they didn’t regard the Constitution as  “an unchangeable body of governmental powers”   (E) , although we can’t be sure whether they had ever accepted that the King possessed the same right  (D) .

Answer: C

7. The primary purpose of the passage is to

Difficulty Level:   650

Explanation

Sometimes passages will come with two main idea questions associated with them. When this is the case, one question will usually be more abstract (and, hence, more difficult) than the other. Use your answer to the easier question to help you answer the more difficult one.

Well, we’ve already seen that the big idea of the passage is that the colonists and English gave different meanings to the same political terms, which, in turn, led them to assign very different roles to similar political institutions, causing some political debate and disagreement between them. In more abstract terms, the passage explains a dimension of the relationship between the American colonies and England in the 17th and 18th centuries. So,  choice (E) is the correct answer.

(A)  sounds like something carried over from poor Goody and his misinterpretation of Athenian democracy in the previous passage. This passage discusses only the author’s views, not those of other scholars; therefore, it can’t be said to expose a misunderstanding about anything. Nor, for that matter, is there any hint that the author is trying to  “settle a debate”  about anything, so  (C)  can be just as quickly rejected.  (B)  is too narrow in scope:

The brief glimpse we get of England’s treatment of the colonies (and the reason for it) in the last paragraph can hardly be called the main focus of the passage. Finally, one wonders if anyone chose  (D)  and, if so, whether that person ever really read  (D) .  “Interpret the events leading up to independence” ? American independence is maybe, maybe hinted at by  line 2  , but that’s it. At best, one might say that this passage explains some of the attitudes that later contributed to the development of the American Constitution. But that was 1789, and  (D)  points us to 1776, and the author is interested in neither one.

Answer: E

Hope it helps

auradediligodo · Answer

Hi everyone,
Took 17 minutes including 4:40 minutes to read, write down paragraphs summaries and main point

P1: Political language in colonies and England
P2: Similarities between colonies and England
P3: 2 differences btw English and colonials: legal development and parliament
P4: Role of constitution and differences btw english and colonials' ones

MP: To discuss similarities and dissimilarities between the english and colonials' political sphere.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

.1 Which one of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?

Pre-thinking:
 Refer to main point formulation to answer this one

(A) The colonials and the English mistakenly thought that they shared a common political vocabulary.
 Nowhere this misunderstanding is mentioned. Hence incorrect.

(B) The colonials and the English shared a variety of institutions.
 True but it's definitely not the main point of the passage since it is not broad enough. Hence incorrect

(C) The colonials and the English had conflicting interpretations of the language and institutional structures that they shared.
 This statement is true and quite broad to cover the majority of the passage. Hence correct

(D) Colonial attitudes toward English institutions grew increasingly hostile in the eighteenth century.
 Inconsistent because of Hostile. Colonials weren't fond of the english's parliament but no mention to a growing resentment. Hence incorrect

(E) Seventeenth-century English legal development accounted for colonial attitudes toward constitutions.
 This is too narrow to be the main point since legal development are discussed only in the last paragraph. Hence incorrect

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.  The passage supports all of the following statements about the political conditions present by the middle of the eighteenth century in the American colonies discussed in the passage EXCEPT:

Pre-thinking:
 Very easy question where all the information is present in P2

(A) Colonials who did not own property could not vote.
 Last line of P2. Hence incorrect

(B) All of these colonies had representative assemblies modeled after the British Parliament.
 Second to last sentence of P2. Hence incorrect

(C) Some of these colonies had Royal Governors.
 Second sentence of P2. Hence incorrect

(D) Royal Governors could be removed from office by colonial assemblies.
 Not mentioned. Hence correct

(E) In these colonies, Royal Governors were regarded as serving a function like that of a king.
 Mentioned in P2. Hence incorrect

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3 . The passage implies which one of the following about English kings prior to the early seventeenth century?

Pre-thinking:
 So the King is mentioned in P3. There it is said that after the new legal development the king was subject to the law. Hence before it was not.

(A) They were the source of all law.
 Too extreme. Hence incorrect

(B) They frequently flouted laws made by Parliament.
 Cannot infer this statement from the information given . Hence incorrect

(C) Their power relative to that of Parliament was considerably greater than it was in the eighteenth century.
 In line with pre-thinking. Hence correct

(D) They were more often the sources of legal reform than they were in the eighteenth century.
 We cannot infer this. Hence incorrect

(E) They had to combat those who believed that the power of Parliament was absolute.
 Cannot be inferred from the information given. Hence incorrect

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.  The author mentions which one of the following as evidence for the eighteenth-century English attitude toward Parliament?

Pre-thinking:
 In the last sentence of P3 it is said that citizens accepted it.

(A) The English had become uncomfortable with institutions that could claim absolute authority.
 No since they accepted it. Hence incorrect

(B) The English realized that their interests were better guarded by Parliament than by the King.
 Not mentioned. hence incorrect

(C) The English allowed Parliament to make constitutional changes by legislative enactment.
 In line with pre-thinking. Hence correct

(D) The English felt that the King did not possess the knowledge that would enable him to rule responsibly.
 Not mentioned. Hence incorrect

(E) The English had decided that it was time to reform their representative government.
 Not mentioned Hence incorrect

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.  The passage implies that the colonials discussed in the passage would have considered which one of the following to be a source of their debates with England?

Pre-thinking:
 Reasons I found for debate:
#1 political power conferred to the parliament
#2 differences in constitution

(A) their changed use of the English political vocabulary
 Don't see any reason for starting a debate because of this. Hence incorrect

(B) English commitment to parliamentary representation
 This sounds reasonable to me. In P3 it is written "The citizens of these colonies did not look upon the English Parliament with such fond eyes, nor did they concede that their own assemblies possessed such wide powers." For me this is the correct aswer

(C) their uniquely English experience
 Don't see any reason for starting a debate because of this. Hence incorrect

(D) their refusal to adopt any English political institutions
 Don't see any reason for starting a debate because of this. Hence incorrect

(E) their greater loyalty to the English political traditions
 Although this is a difference I don't see why a debate should start from this. Hence incorrect  to me

Does anyone have a good explanation for this question?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.  According to the passage, the English attitude toward the English Constitution differed from the colonial attitude toward constitutions in that the English regarded their Constitution as

Pre-thinking:
 Refer to this sentence in P4:"To the English the word “constitution” meant the whole body of law and legal custom formulated since the beginning of the kingdom, whereas to these colonials a constitution was a specific written document, enumerating specific powers."

(A) the legal foundation of the kingdom
 Not in line with pre-thinking. Hence incorrect

(B) a document containing a collection of customs
 Not in line with pre-thinking. Plus it was not just this. Hence incorrect

(C) a cumulative corpus of legislation and legal traditions
 in line with pre-thinking. Hence correct

(D) a record alterable by royal authority
 Not in line with pre-thinking. Hence incorrect

(E) an unchangeable body of governmental powers
 Not in line with pre-thinking. Hence incorrect

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  
 7.  The primary purpose of the passage is to

Pre-thinking:
 Refer to main point above.

(A) expose the misunderstanding that has characterized descriptions of the relationship between seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England and certain of its American colonies
 No misunderstandings . Hence incorrect

(B) suggest a reason for England’s treatment of certain of its American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
 No special treatment highlighted. Hence incorrect

(C) settle an ongoing debate about the relationship between England and certain of its American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
 No ongoing debate here. Hence incorrect

(D) interpret the events leading up to the independence of certain of England’s American colonies in the eighteenth century
 not the main point here. Hence incorrect

(E) explain an aspect of the relationship between England and certain of its American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
 This is a rephrase of my main point. The aspect that is explained is the political sphere. Hence correct

It is a good day to be alive, cheers!

TanmayT · Answer

Hello!

All correct in 8 minutes and 27 seconds, including the time to read. 
 Sajjad1994 , can you please share the difficulty levels of all the questions in the passage?
IDK why, but I found this passage to be exceptionally easy and that's why I'm just confused about the difficulty levels.

Thanks and Regards,
Tanmay.

BIGDAMNGOD · Answer

All correct - 12 min 44 seconds, including 2 min 22 seconds to read

How much time should we spend in such passages? considering we only get 8-9 min for each passage on the LSAT

Kratosgmat · Answer

6. According to the passage, the English attitude toward the English Constitution differed from the colonial attitude toward constitutions in that the English regarded their Constitution as

(A) the legal foundation of the kingdom
(C) a cumulative corpus of legislation and legal traditions
B,D,E can be eliminated easily so its down to A and C.... C is the better option as its directly stated in the passage. Dont be thrown off by the word "corpus"

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The English who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries inhabited

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The English who in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries inhabited

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