The question posed by the author in lines 7–10 of the passage introduces which one of the following'

on October 9, 2019

Help?

Stephanie on March 20, 2020

I need help as well.

Adrian on March 24, 2020

Also need help

on April 13, 2020

Hi this question has been unanswered for ~8 months, could someone please explain?

on May 27 at 08:47PM

Hi, not sure if this is too late but I wanted to share my thoughts to help. It's also good practice for me since I got this one wrong too. Note: I assumed the author was male for convenience.

The passage, as explained by one of the LSAT Max Tutors is mostly exploring the nature of what it means to be a "professional". The author raises multiple views for sufficiency / necessity of the definition, ultimately criticizing and rejecting most of them before arriving at a proposed answer that professions have to do with promises to a "continuing devotion to a way of life."

This question is more of a structural one where the rhetorical question is used ultimately to introduce a hook by way of contrasting the characteristics of physicians' work with that of craftwork, all in order to transition to his real question, and main point which is answering the question: what defines a profession?

A) is incorrect because nowhere does the author express his thoughts on the "futility of resisting" any trends, let alone that of the trend toward defining physicians as a trade. For this answer to be correct would require the author to make an explicit statement saying the trend was "inevitable", or at least something along those lines, which it does not do.

B) is incorrect because nowhere does the passage suggest the author's actual feelings towards government, which would be required for this to even be considered as a possible option. The only reference to government is the effort through regulation to downsize the medical profession (paragraph 1), which he may or may not disagree with, but does not suggest he feels any "dislike" towards the government. Thus, the rhetorical question definitely does not advance this.

C) The correct answer because, as stated above, the rhetorical question is really used to allow the author to describe the nature of physicians by contrasting it to the nature of craft work and thus, ultimately leading to his overall argument to define what being a professional entails. I think it helps to keep track of the argument's purpose and then checking your selection of answers to see if they weigh meaningfully against the purpose - i.e does it advance to this purpose or at least align with the purpose?

D) is incorrect (and this is where I made my mistake) because while he does cite sensible people and physicians to resist the effort to redefine physicians as crafts people, it is not his purpose to rally people to a "concentrated defense of physicians" in this passage; this would lead to an very different flow of discussion. It's also evident this is not the purpose of the question because nowhere does he bring up again the defense of physicians in particular again - even the physicians themselves are really just an example of a profession that the author uses to initiate his discussion. He probably could have begun with any profession and use them to enable his discussion.

E) is incorrect because this again does not align to the author's purpose which is to explore the nature and definition of professions. Maybe the author is fascinated with the words "profession" and "crafts" but this question, and the passage overall, are certainly not about his fascination for words in general. Again, this would entail a very different flow of discussion, so the rhetorical question does not advance this. I think it helps to know that the LSAT trims these discussions to be very pointed. Relevant information is a tacit requirement for these passages and I think it's rather rare to find "irrelevant" information that doesn't advance the author's point without the author specifically calling it out as such.

Hope this helps! Happy to receive feedback on my thoughts if anyone feels there's a better, or more correct, way to view these answers and questions!