Q11

[einuoa]

I got the right answer on the test, but looking back at the question, I am a bit more unsure of my answer.

I eliminated A, D, and E as they were more obviously wrong, but am stuck between B and C.

I understand why C is right as it is supported by lines 23-25 but am finding a hard time eliminating B, if anyone can help!

B is supported by 29-34, so it seems that the author would agree that it is incompatible but can you classify that as a weakness of the statutes? I am skeptical that it's a weakness but also do not know how to reason it.

I did a mini diagram likes this:

transparent reasoning -> ~disqualification motions

but to assume that transparent reasoning is a weakness of disqualification motions would have to flip the reasoning, and that is fallacious.

Meep, would love some help on this answer choice, thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you nailed it.

For this, and any “inferred/implies/suggests/most likely to agree”, question, you should aspire to have a line reference to justify your answer. Meanwhile, you want to be especially wary of Extreme, Comparative, and Out of Scope trap answer language.

For example,
(A) strong- “excessively rigid”
(B) strong – “incompatible”
(C) soft wording --- “can fail”, “not always”
(D) somewhat strong – “conflict with”
(E) soft wording – “no guarantee that all”

If there are keywords in the question stem, then we use those to locate the section of the text being tested.

Here, we need to find “a weakness of statutes that allow parties to request disqualification of judges”. This seems to be drawn from the 2nd paragraph, since in our Passage Map, we would indicate that paragraph 2 is where the author lists her complaints with the existing system.

- vague guidance (whose judgment? how to interpret facts?)
- wrong focus (eliminating appearance of bias rather than eliminating actual bias)
- potential for bias to be overloked

Lines 22-24 sound a lot like (C), which is the correct answer.

There is no actual line reference for (B) to support the strong idea of “incompatible” (i.e., ‘contradictory’). The author in this passage is simply arguing, “the current way stinks; let’s go with this new way I’m proposing.”

That doesn’t mean the author is saying the old way CONTRADICTS the new way. He’s just saying, the new way is better, so let’s scrap the old way.

It’s compatible to have a method in which judges explain there reasoning for recusing / not recusing themselves as well as to have a method in which other parties could take action demanding recusal. They could co-exist.

Hope this helps.

[abrenza123]

I was a bit confused by the wording of C because I interpreted it as parties to proceedings are not aware of judges' prejudice means that they wouldn't be requesting the motion in the first place.

I thought lines 22-24 that focusing on appearances could mean that there is actual bias that isn't detected because its not apparent, but I wasn't sure if it was referring to apparent bias that is put forth, such as a request to disqualify, could be dismissed with the actual bias going undetected.

I thought the only was C was weakness would be if a party was requesting disqualification for apparent bias that was dismissed but there was till s bias that was not acknowledged and hence not considered. is that correct?

[ohthatpatrick]

Some of your sentences there weren't fully grammatical, so I'm not sure I got your meaning.

The 2nd paragraph is saying,
"I don't like making the metric for whether or not to recuse this whole idea of would the judge's impartiality reasonably be questioned. This isn't asking whether there is / isn't bias. It's asking whether it looks / doesn't look like there's bias. If we're basing recusal on the APPEARANCE of bias, we'll have two different crappy possibilities:
1. The judge has some appearance of bias, and errs on the side of caution by recusing herself, even though she would be totally cognitively capable of properly reaching a just income.

2. The judge does not have any appearance of bias, so she does not recuse herself, but she DOES in fact have some actual bias. The reason for that bias might not be apparent to outside observers.


Judges are always expected to recuse themselves if they think their impartiality might be questioned. In SOME places, it's also possible for people besides the judge to request a recusal.

For (C), I think we're focused more on the universal concern of whether or not a judge would recuse herself.

If she's asking herself, "Will it appear to others as though I'm biased?"
she might get different answers than if she were to ask herself, "Am I actually biased?"

She might think to herself, "There's no appearance of bias here. I don't need to recuse myself", even though she was actually harboring some bias (that others may be clueless about and she may be blind to, without a better legal standard forcing her to do more introspection).

Hope this helps.