"The reference to the... serves primarily to"

Bianca1234-1

Does anyone have a specific way of dealing with these problems. I swear I almost consistently get them wrong time after time despite understanding that the answer is in the passage. I don't know what I'm specifically doing wrong but I suppose I must be falling for a trap answer or something like that. This occurs with any question that asks to explain the purpose of a specific word or phrase. Any help would be very appreciated. Thank you.

Bumblebee

Hey,

I've found that reading the sentence/phrase that precedes the referenced part is helpful in determining the primary purpose of it. Perhaps reading what comes after it is also useful in figuring out the context.

Trap AC's often lure us by talking about details that may be relevant to another part of the passage or the entire passage, but when a question specifically asks for the purpose of some referenced part, it is usually the case that the correct answer is a paraphrase of the sentence that precedes it.

I recommend reading OhthatPatrick's post (the last post under this discussion) where he talks about how to tackle RC primary purpose questions in general.
https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/forums/q17-t1764.html

Ohnoeshalpme

Just keep re-reading the passage until it clicks. Don't be scared to spend 20-30 minutes (during BR or untimed drilling) on a single passage to be sure that you are getting out of it what you need to get out of it. Unlike LR or LG, there are no real "tricks" to answering specific question types. The ease of the questions generally comes from a solid understanding of the passage overall. The questions that you are talking about are merely a different form of many of the other questions that all test the same thing.