MCAT CARS Section: Strategies + Sample Questions

The state’s property right in the prisoner’s labor exists by virtue of the 13th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which provides that slavery or involuntary servitude may be a punishment for crime, after due process of law. This property right the state may lease or retain for its own use, the manner being set forth in state constitutions and acts of legislatures. To make this of material value the prisoner’s labor must be productive. The distribution of the product of the prisoner’s labor inevitably presents the problem of competition. The confounding of the evil of penal servitude with the methods of production and the methods of distribution which have grown out of it has produced a confusion in the thought underlying prison labor regulation by legislative enactment.

The usual penological analysis of prison labor into lease, contract, piece-price, public account and state-use systems is impossible to use in an economic analysis of the labor conditions involved. Economically two systems of convict production and two systems of distribution of convict-made goods exist; production is either by the state or under individual enterprise: distribution is either limited to the preferred state use market or through the general competitive market. In the light of such classification the convict labor legislation of the current year shows definite tendencies toward the state’s assumption of its responsibility for its own use of the prisoner on state lands, in state mines and as operatives in state factories; while in distribution the competition of the open market, with its disastrous effect upon prices, tends to give place to the use of labor and commodities by the state itself in its manifold activities. Improvements like these in the production and distribution of the products mitigate evils, but in no vital way effect the economic injustice always inherent under a slave system. The payment of wage to the convict as a right growing out of his production of valuable commodities is the phase of this legislation which tends to destroy the slavery condition. Such legislation has made its appearance, together with the first suggestion of the right of choice allowed to the convict in regard to his occupation…

The expression of these tendencies found in the legislation of 1911 comes to view in divers[e] states and a confusion of statutes in which every shade of development is present…The prisoner received compensation for labor in six states…his dependent family was given assistance in five…while Nevada gave him the right to choose between working on the roads or working indoors…The antagonism of organized labor to the distribution of the products of the convict’s labor on the open market resulted in the passage in Montana, Oregon and California of laws requiring branding of convict made goods.

In a word, the economic progress in prison labor shown in the legislation of 1911 is toward more efficient production by the elimination of the profits of the leasee, more economical distribution by the substitution of a preferred market where the profits of the middleman are eliminated in place of the unfair competition with the products of free labor in the open markets, and finally the curtailment of the slave system by the provisions for wages and choice of occupation for the man in penal servitude.

Correct Answer: D

Tone questions test whether you tracked the author's attitude during your first read, not whether you can go back and look for emotional language. Before you look at the answer choices, ask yourself: What did the author think about the subject, and how did they express it?

The author of Passage 1 calls penal servitude an "evil" and refers to "economic injustice always inherent under a slave system." Those are strong opinions. But notice how they're delivered. The author states a position directly and moves on to an economic analysis. That delivery style is the key to the answer.

Now eliminate. "Arrogant" (A) implies condescension or superiority toward others, but there's no evidence that the author talks down to anyone.

"Sympathetic" (B) implies compassion toward penal servitude or those who support it, but the author clearly opposes the system, not sympathizes with it.

"Righteous" (C) is tempting because the author does hold a moral position, but righteous implies a forceful, moralizing tone, and the author's language is measured, not preachy.

"Frank" (D) fits perfectly. The author states opinions directly without embellishment or emotional escalation.

For tone questions, identify the author's opinion first; then assess how they express it. The opinion and the delivery often point to different answer choices, and the question is asking about delivery.

Some years ago the Director of the Leipsic Conservatorium gave the writer a complete record of the number of graduates of the conservatory from the founding to the late nineties. Of the thousands of students who had passed through the institution only a few had gained wide prominence. Hardly one student in one hundred had won his way into the most voluminous of the musical biographical dictionaries. The proportion of distinguished graduates to those who fail to gain renown is very high at Leipsic compared with many other institutions. What becomes of the thousands of students all working frantically with the hope of becoming famous pianists? Surely, so much earnest effort can not be wasted even though all can not win the race? Those who often convince themselves that they have failed go on to perform a more useful service to society than the laurelcrowned virtuoso. Unheralded and unapplauded, they become the teachers, the true missionaries of Frau Musik to the people.

What is it then, which promotes a few “fortunate” ones from the armies of students all over America and Europe and makes of them great virtuosos? What must one do to become a virtuoso? How long must one study before one may make a début? What does a great virtuoso receive for his performances? How long does the virtuoso practice each day? What exercises does he use? All these and many more similar questions crop up regularly in the offices of music critics and in the studios of teachers. Unfortunately, a definite answer can be given to none, although a great deal may be learned by reviewing some of the experiences of one who became great.

Some virtuosos actually seem to be born with the heavenly gift. Many indeed are sons and daughters of parents who see their own demolished dreams realized in the triumphs of their children. When little Nathan creeps to the piano and quite without the help of his elders picks out the song he has heard his mother sing,— all the neighbors in Odessa know it the next day. “A wonder child perhaps!” Oh happy augury of fame and fortune! Little Nathan shall have the best of instruction. His mother will teach him at first, of course. She will shape his little fingers to the keyboard. She will sing sweet folk melodies in his ear,—songs of labor, struggle, exile. She will count laboriously day after day until he “plays in time.” All the while the little mother sees far beyond the Ghetto,—out into the great world,—grand auditoriums, breathless crowds, countless lights, nobles granting trinkets, bravos from a thousand throats, Nathan surrounded by endless wreaths of laurel,—Oh, it is all too much,—”Nathan! Nathan! you are playing far too fast. One, two, three, four,—one, two, three, four,—there, that is the tempo Clementi would have had it. Fine! Some day, Nathan, you will be a great pianist and—” etc., etc.

Nathan next goes to the great teacher. He is already eight years old and fairly leaping out of his mother’s arms. Two years with the teacher and Nathan is probably ready for a début as a wonder child. The critics are kind. If his parents are very poor Nathan may go from town to town for awhile being exhibited like a trained poodle or a tiny acrobat. The further he gets from home the more severe his critics become, and Nathan and his mother hurry back to the old teachers, who tell them that Nathan must still practice long and hard as well as do something to build up his general education. The world in these days looks askance at the musician who aside from his keyboard accomplishments is a numskull. More sacrifice for Nathan’s mother and father,—but what are poverty and deprivation with such a goal in sight? Nathan studies for some years in the schools and in the high schools as well as at the conservatory. In the music school he will doubtless spend six years in all,—two years in the post-graduate or master classes, following the regular four-year course. When sufficiently capable he will take a few pupils at a kopeck or so per lesson to help out with the family expenses…

Unfortunately, the number of virtuosos who have been taught exclusively in America is really very small. It is not a question of ability upon the part of the teacher or talent upon the part of the pupil. It is entirely a matter of the attitudes of the teacher, the pupil and the pupil’s home advisers. Success demands strong-willed discipline and the most lofty standards imaginable. Teachers who have taught for years in America have returned to Europe, doubled and quadrupled their fees, and, under old-world surroundings and with more rigid standards of artistic work, have produced results they declare would have been impossible in America. The author contends that these results would have been readily forthcoming if we in America assumed the same earnest, persistent attitude toward the work itself. If these words do no more than reach the eyes of some of those who are advising students wrongly in this matter they will not have been written in vain. The European concert triumphs of Mrs. H. H. A. Beach, whose training was received wholly in the United States, is an indication of what may be achieved in America if the right course is pursued. Conditions are changing rapidly in our country, particularly in the wonderful West and Middle-West. It seems likely that many pianists without foreign instruction of any kind will have as great success in our concert field as have many of our best opera singers who have never had a lesson ‘on the other side.’

Correct Answer: B

Start by recalling the author's central argument. In this passage, success as a virtuoso depends primarily on internal factors like attitude, discipline, and motivation — not on birthplace or some guaranteed formula.

Answer A says there's value in studying successful virtuosos even without a guaranteed formula. The author explicitly asks what makes virtuosos successful and says, "A great deal may be learned by reviewing some of the experiences of one who became great." This is consistent.

Answer B says hard work is a "fail-safe" path to success. The author acknowledges that thousands of conservatory students work hard and still don't achieve fame. The author also mentions that "some virtuosos actually seem to be born with the heavenly gift," implying that talent plays a role that hard work alone can't replace. "Fail-safe" means guaranteed, and the passage directly contradicts a guarantee. Flag this one.

Answer C says a well-rounded education matters. The author writes that "the world in these days looks askance at the musician who, aside from his keyboard accomplishments, is a numskull." This is consistent.

Answer D says cultural differences are powerful but can be overcome. The author describes the advantages of European training, then cites Mrs. H.H.A. Beach as proof that Americans can succeed, too. This is consistent.

On inconsistent questions, don't look for completely wrong answers. Look for the one that's almost right but contains a word or phrase that pushes it past what the author actually claims.

An account of the American Revolution which took cognizance only of the armed conflict with England would tell much less than half the truth, and even that half would be misleading. If anyone doubts that the real inspiration which made America a nation was drawn, not from Whiggish quarrels about taxes, but from the great dogmas promulgated by Jefferson, it is sufficient to point out that the States did not even wait till their victory over England was assured before effecting a complete internal revolution on the basis of those dogmas. Before the last shot had been fired almost the last privilege had disappeared…

Hereditary titles and privileges went first. On this point public feeling became so strong that the proposal to form after the war a society to be called “the Cincinnati,” which was to consist of those who had taken a prominent part in the war and afterwards of their descendants, was met, in spite of the respect in which Washington and the other military heroes were held, with so marked an expression of public disapproval that the hereditary part of the scheme had to be dropped.

Franchises were simplified, equalized, broadened, so that in practically every State the whole adult male population of European race received the suffrage. Social and economic reforms having the excellent aim of securing and maintaining a wide distribution of property, especially of land, were equally prominent among the achievements of that time. Jefferson himself carried in Virginia a drastic code of Land Laws, which anticipated many of the essential provisions which through the Code Napoleon revolutionized the system of land-owning in Europe….

Another principle, not connected by any direct logic with democracy and not set forth in the Declaration of Independence, was closely associated with the democratic thesis by the great French thinkers by whom that thesis was revived, and had a strong hold upon the mind of Jefferson—the principle of religious equality, or, as it might be more exactly defined, of the Secular State…it does not mean that anyone may commit any anti-social act that appeals to him, and claim immunity from the law on the ground that he is impelled to that act by his religion; can rob as a conscientious communist, murder as a conscientious Thug, or refuse military service as a conscientious objector. None understood better than Jefferson—it was the first principle of his whole political system—that there must be some basis of agreement amongst citizens as to what is right and what is wrong, and that what the consensus of citizens regards as wrong must be punished by the law. All that the doctrine of the Secular State asserted was that such general agreement among citizens need not include, as in most modern States it obviously does not include, an agreement on the subject of religion. Religion is, so to speak, left out of the Social Contract, and consequently each individual retains his natural liberty to entertain and promulgate what views he likes concerning it, so long as such views do not bring him into conflict with those general principles of morality, patriotism and social order upon which the citizens of the State are agreed, and which form the basis of its laws.

The public mind of America was for the most part well prepared for the application of this principle. We have already noted how the first experiment in the purely secular organization of society had been made in the Catholic colony of Maryland and the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania. The principle was now applied in its completeness to one State after another. The Episcopalian establishment of Jefferson’s own State was the first to fall; the other States soon followed the example of Virginia… It may be added that America affords the one conspicuous example of the Secular State completely succeeding. In France, where the same principles were applied under the same inspiration, the ultimate result was something wholly different: an organized Atheism persecuting the Christian Faith. In England the principle has never been avowedly applied at all. In theory the English State still professes the form of Protestant Christianity defined in the Prayer-book, and “tolerates” dissenters from it as the Christian States of the middle ages tolerated the Jews, and as in France, during the interval between the promulgation of the Edict of Nantes and its revocation, a State definitely and even pronouncedly Catholic tolerated the Huguenots…

The American Republic has not escaped the difficulties and problems which are inevitable to the Secular State, when some of its citizens profess a religion which brings them into conflict with the common system of morals which the nation takes for granted; the case of the Mormons is a typical example of such a problem. But there is some evidence that, as the Americans have applied the doctrine far more logically than we, they have also a keener perception of the logic of its limitations…

Changes so momentous, made in so drastic and sweeping a fashion in the middle of a life and death struggle for national existence, show how vigorous and compelling was the popular impulse towards reform.

Correct Answer: C

Weaken questions require you to identify the author's foundational assumption and then find the answer that destroys it. Don't look for answers that slightly complicate the argument. Look for the one that pulls out the structural support. The author's entire passage is built on a legal premise. Every economic analysis, every discussion of distribution systems, every argument about prisoner rights flows from that legal foundation.

Answer A would actually strengthen the argument by showing economic benefits. Answer B weakens one small point about occupational choice, but the passage doesn't focus on whether job selection affects market efficiency. The author mentions prisoner choice as one of several reforms, not as the central argument.

Answer C says states don't actually have the legal authority to regulate prisoner labor. If that's true, the entire framework collapses. Every law the author analyzes becomes invalid. Every reform the author praises becomes illegitimate. The foundational premise is gone.

Answer D would actually strengthen the argument by showing a longer historical precedent for government regulation of prisoner labor.

For weaken questions, map the argument's structure before you evaluate the choices. Identify the foundation (the assumption everything depends on), the pillars (the key supporting evidence), and the decorations (interesting but non-essential details). The correct answer almost always targets the foundation.

Every introduction to the problems of aesthetics begins by acknowledging the existence and claims of two methods of attack,—the general, philosophical, deductive, which starts from a complete metaphysics and installs beauty in its place among the other great concepts; and the empirical, or inductive, which seeks to disengage a general principle of beauty from the objects of aesthetic experience and the facts of aesthetic enjoyment: Fechner’s ‘aesthetics from above and from below…’

Aesthetics, then, came into being as the philosophy of the Beautiful, and it may be asked why this philosophical aesthetics does not suffice—why beauty should need for its understanding also an aesthetics…

The answer is not that no system of philosophy is universally accepted, but that the general aesthetic theories have not, as yet at least, succeeded in answering the plain questions of ‘the plain man’ in regard to concrete beauty…No one of these aesthetic systems, in spite of volumes of so-called application of their principles to works of art, has been able to furnish a criterion of beauty…And so it was that empirical aesthetics arose, which does not seek to answer those plain questions as to the enjoyment of concrete beauty down to its simplest forms, to which philosophical aesthetics had been inadequate.

But it is clear that neither has empirical aesthetics said the last word concerning beauty. Criticism is still in a chaotic state that would be impossible if aesthetic theory were firmly grounded. This situation appears to me to be due to the inherent inadequacy and inconclusiveness of empirical aesthetics when it stands alone; the grounds of this inadequacy I shall seek to establish in the following.

Granting that the aim of every aesthetics is to determine the Nature of Beauty, and to explain our feelings about it, we may say that the empirical treatments propose to do this either by describing the aesthetic object and extracting the essential elements of Beauty, or by describing the aesthetic experience and extracting the essential elements of aesthetic feeling, thereby indicating the elements of Beauty as those which effect this feeling.

Now the bare description and analysis of beautiful objects cannot, logically, yield any result; for the selection of cases would have to be arbitrary, and would be at the mercy of any objection. To any one who should say, But this is not beautiful, and should not be included in your inventory, answer could be made only by showing that it had such and such qualities, the very, by hypothesis, unknown qualities that were to be sought. Moreover, the field of beauty contains so many and so heterogeneous objects, that the retreat to their only common ground, aesthetic feeling, appears inevitable. A statue and a symphony can be reduced to a common denominator most easily if the states of mind which they induce are compared. Thus the analysis of objects passes naturally over to the analysis of mental states— the point of view of psychology.

There is, however, a method subsidiary to the preceding, which seeks the elements of Beauty in a study of the genesis and the development of art forms. But this leaves the essential phenomenon absolutely untouched. The general types of aesthetic expression may indeed have been shaped by social forces,— religious, commercial, domestic,—but as social products, not as aesthetic phenomena. Such studies reveal to us, as it were, the excuse for the fact of music, poetry, painting— but they tell us nothing of the reason why beautiful rather than ugly forms were chosen, as who should show that the bird sings to attract its mate, ignoring the relation and sequence of the notes. The decorative art of most savage tribes, for instance, is nearly all of totemic origin, and the decayed and degraded forms of snake, bird, bear, fish, may be traced in the most apparently empty geometric patterns;—but what does this discovery tell us of the essentially decorative quality of such patterns or of the nature of beauty of form?…These researches, in short, explain the reason for the existence, but not for the quality, of works of art.

Thus it is in psychology that empirical aesthetics finds its last resort. And indeed, our plain man might say, the aesthetic experience itself is inescapable and undeniable. You know that the sight or the hearing of this thing gives you a thrill of pleasure. You may not be able to defend the beauty of the object, but the fact of the experience you have. The psychologist, seeking to analyze the vivid and unmistakable Aesthetic experience, would therefore proceed somewhat as follows. He would select the salient characteristics of his mental state in presence of a given work of art. He would then study, by experiment and introspection, how the particular sense-stimulations of the work of art in question could become the psychological conditions of these salient characteristics. Thus, supposing the aesthetic experience to have been described as ‘the conscious happiness in which one is absorbed, and, as it were, immersed in the sense-object,’ the further special aim, in connection with a picture, for instance, would be to show how the sensations and associated ideas from color, line, composition, and all the other elements of a picture may, on general psychological principles, bring about this state of happy absorption…

Correct Answer: A

Purpose questions test whether you understood what the author was trying to accomplish, not what they talked about. Only one answer choice will accurately describe why the author wrote it. The author opens by describing two approaches to aesthetics: Philosophical (top-down) Empirical (bottom-up)

The passage walks through why describing beautiful objects can't work on its own, why studying the history of art forms doesn't address the core question, and why psychology becomes the last resort for empirical aesthetics. The author diagnoses why the empirical approach falls short.

Answer A matches that precisely. The passage reflects on why empirical aesthetics is inadequate when it operates alone.

Answer B sounds plausible, but the passage doesn't land on a solution or endorse a particular approach to identifying beauty's elements.

Answer C is a trap. The author explicitly argues against the idea that you can select which objects are "most beautiful" for study, noting that "the selection of cases would have to be arbitrary." Choosing this answer means you misread the passage.

Answer D references happiness, which appears briefly at the end of the passage in a description of psychological aesthetics. However, one mention in the final paragraph doesn't define the purpose of the entire passage.

For purpose questions, reconstruct the passage's arc in one sentence before you look at the choices. "The author does X in order to argue Y." If your one-sentence summary matches an answer choice, you've found it. If none of the choices match, reread the first and last paragraphs.

I have been told that there are many people who read the newspapers on the day after they have attended a concert or operatic representation for the purpose of finding out whether or not the performance gave them proper or sufficient enjoyment…Certain it is that some men who write about music for the newspapers believe, or affect to believe, that criticism is worthless, and I shall not escape the charge of inconsistency, if, after I have condemned the blunders of literary men, who are laymen in music, and separated the majority of professional writers on the art into pedants and rhapsodists, I nevertheless venture to discuss the nature and value of musical criticism. Yet, surely, there must be a right and wrong in this as in every other thing, and just as surely the present structure of society, which rests on the newspaper, invites attention to the existing relationship between musician, critic, and public…

I lay down the proposition that the relationship between the three factors enumerated is so intimate and so strict that the world over they rise and fall together; which means that where the people dwell who have reached the highest plane of excellence, there also are to be found the highest types of the musician and critic; and that in the degree in which the three factors, which united make up the sum of musical activity, labor harmoniously, conscientiously, and unselfishly, each striving to fulfil its mission, they advance music and further themselves, each bearing off an equal share of the good derived from the common effort... In this collaboration, as in so many others, it is conflict that brings life. Only by a surrender of their functions, one to the other, could the three apparently dissonant yet essentially harmonious factors be brought into a state of complacency; but such complacency would mean stagnation…

The complacency of the musician and the indifference, not to say ignorance, of the public ordinarily combine to make them allies, and the critic is, therefore, placed between two millstones, where he is vigorously rasped on both sides, and whence, being angular and hard of outer shell, he frequently requites the treatment received with complete and energetic reciprocity. Is he therefore to be pitied? Not a bit; for in this position he is performing one of the most significant and useful of his functions, and disclosing one of his most precious virtues. While musician and public must perforce remain in the positions in which they have been placed with relation to each other it must be apparent at half a glance that it would be the simplest matter in the world for the critic to extricate himself from his predicament. He would only need to take his cue from the public, measuring his commendation by the intensity of their applause, his dispraise by their signs of displeasure, and all would be well with him. We all know this to be true, that people like to read that which flatters them by echoing their own thoughts. The more delightfully it is put by the writer the more the reader is pleased, for has he not had the same idea? Are they not his? Is not their appearance in a public print proof of the shrewdness and soundness of his judgment?...

As a rule, however, the critic is not guilty of the wrong of speaking out the thought of others, but publishes what there is of his own mind, and this I laud in him as a virtue, which is praiseworthy in the degree that it springs from loftiness of aim, depth of knowledge, and sincerity and unselfishness of purpose…

Correct Answer: B

Application questions give you a new scenario and ask you to predict what would happen based on the passage's logic.

The passage argues that musicians, critics, and the public form a three-part system in which productive conflict among them drives musical progress. The author warns that if the critic simply echoed public opinion, the critic would lose the very quality that makes the role valuable.

If the public starts sharing opinions on social media immediately after a performance, the public offers commentary in real time. Under the author's framework, the critic's value lies in providing independent, knowledgeable analysis that doesn't merely mirror public sentiment.

Answer A says the critic would gain authority. Under the author's model, the critic's authority comes from offering something the public can't. If the public is now broadcasting opinions freely, that unique space disappears.

Answer B says the critic's role would diminish. If the public is performing the commentary function directly, the critic becomes less necessary, which is exactly what the author's model would predict.

Answer C says the relationship would become more unified. The author explicitly argues that productive conflict is what drives progress. Complacency means stagnation in this model.

Answer D says musicians would depend more on critics. If the public is sharing opinions directly, musicians could access audience feedback without a critic as an intermediary. Dependency would decrease, not increase.

For application questions, first extract the author's model or principle, then apply it to the new scenario. Don’t use outside knowledge or personal opinions.