Q10

[Nina]

really curious about how can we infer from the passage that this passage is written by a judge?

thanks in advance!

[maryadkins]

Lines 21 ("this court") and 33 ("the trial court below"). Also the beginning which begins, this appeal.

[charmayne.palomba]

Thanks for your question! In this case (no pun intended!) the fact that the author of the passage is a judge doesn't jump off the page. However, there are a couple of hints. First of all, in Line 21, the author says, "This court sees no reason..." The only person that can speak on behalf of a court is a judge. Second, at the end of the passage the author decides the case by saying that the trial court was correct. Again, that's something only a judge can do.

Since those are rather subtle clues, you can always fall back on eliminating wrong answers.

(B) is the opposite of what we're looking for, because the author is definitely not in favor of the defendant.

(C) is tempting because it's on the right side of the fence, but if the author were a prosecutor, we would expect to hear him argue that the defendant SHOULD be convicted. In this case, the author is deciding THAT the defendant should be convicted, which is the role of the judge.

(D) and (E) are out because there is no indication in the text that the author is a professor or academic.

[filipouraa]

I think this was partially mentioned in the comment above but I wanted to mention another subtle clue I picked up on. In line 33 we see the affirmation of "The trial court below['s]" decision, illustrating that this is in fact an appeal. While this may not be enough by itself to eliminate (C), it does help gravitate you towards (A).

[mahdib21]

How are we supposed to infer that this is a judge without having some kind of prior knowledge that a prosecutor generally wouldn't say "this court" and so on?

[aescano209]

How are we supposed to infer that this is a judge without having some kind of prior knowledge that a prosecutor generally wouldn't say "this court" and so on?

Hey, so I understand the possible confusion between the prosecutor who would be arguing against the defendant here and a judge, but I think there a couple subtle clues we can use to hint to the idea it's a judge. Well first, as other posters have said lines 1-7, 33-35, make it sound as if a judge is presiding, but I can definitely see the possibility of maybe a proesectuor trying to argue a case for a reaffirmation of a guilty verdict. But let me ask this question, will a prosecutor weigh out the pros and cons as 'evenly-handed' as the author in Passage A did? Probably not. The author here seems as if they are willing to acknowledge the faults of the system and that it possibly needs improvement (lines 20-21, 24-33), but in the end the author didn't see any apparent faults in the fingerprint analysis thus not accepting the defendant's argument. The author wasn't as outright to say that this defendant is clearly wrong for this this and this reason as we might expect a prosectuor to do. That is what at least swayed me to answer choice A over C. But honestly from the get-go as I read it, I was saying to myself that it sounded like a judge was speaking oddly enough.