Q11

[LSAT-Chang]

This is probably the dumbest question I've posted on the forum, but I picked (E) because I thought since the term "political" is used to describe how even if history shows the legal tradition to be far from unitary and seldom logical, the "prestige" of the legal institution requires blah blah blah. So they are concerned with the "prestige", so I thought (E) was similar in how they are "perceived" by others -- but I guess radical theorists are just WAY out of scope, right?

[maryadkins]

but I guess radical theorists are just WAY out of scope, right?

Bingo! Watch out for words like radical! You know that (I know you do).

And (A), (B), and (C) are out of scope.

[carly.applebaum]

i don't understand how "maintenance" or "effectiveness" is relevant to the question. i do see how the rest of the answer choices are wrong, but i was thrown off by the wording of this answer choice. what exactly is it saying?

thanks!

[joseph.m.kirby]

i don't understand how "maintenance" or "effectiveness" is relevant to the question. i do see how the rest of the answer choices are wrong, but i was thrown off by the wording of this answer choice. what exactly is it saying?

thanks!

Answer Choice: "having to do with the maintenance of an institution's effectiveness"

Supporting Text: "In political terms, believing in the logic of law is a necessary part of believing in its fairness; even if history shows the legal tradition to be far from unitary and seldom logical, the prestige of the legal institution requires that jurisprudence treat the tradition as if it were, in essence, the application of known rule to objectively determined facts.

Inference: To maintain the prestige (key inference: effectiveness) of the institution requires treating (maintenance) the tradition as if it were an application of rule to fact.

[maryadkins]

Nice, clear explanation here.

Does that clarify?

[shirando21]

I don't understand why effectiveness has anything to do with prestige????

[joseph.m.kirby]

The prestige relates to people's belief in and respect of the institution. If people stop believing in/respecting the institution, it will lose its effectiveness as a vehicle for justice.

[shirando21]

Thanks.

[boy5237]

Can someone go deeper with this question?

I mean the fact that LSAT is equating effectiveness with prestige is so bad already...

[sumukh09]

Is C wrong because "between professions and the citizenry" is out of scope? "Demoralizing for the public" in lie 39 supports the "citizenry" part of C but is the answer choice wrong because "professions" is not mentioned? What if it were "institutions" instead? Would C be right?

[maryadkins]

I mean the fact that LSAT is equating effectiveness with prestige is so bad already...

It's not equating prestige with effectiveness but saying that the prestige of the institution is what leads people believe in its fairness (line 32). Read lines 30-39 carefully. What is it saying there? That politically, we have to view legal institutions as prestigious because if we didn't, it would be dispiriting to the student and demoralizing to the public--in other words, we'd stop believing in it, and that'd be ineffective. It's not perfect but it's the best answer.

(A) is wrong because the discussion about politics in this paragraph isn't at all about how people seek to advance themselves.

(B) is wrong because there isn't discussion of covert methods and how they might be unethical; this paragraph isn't about what's ethical and what's not.

(C) like (B), makes it about ethics. It's not. (To be clear given some of the confusion I'm picking up in this chain, "demoralizing" doesn't have to do with ethics. It means causing someone to lose confidence or hope.)

(E) mentions "radical" theorists. No.

[shirleyx]

my understanding/thought process of this question:

Refer to the right section on the second paragraph, re-read it.
(A) is wrong because nothing about advancement professionally is mentioned here or elsewhere in the passage.
(C) is incorrect because "ethical standards" isn't a good term to use here.
(E) is wrong because "radical theorist" is a pretty radical term to use (see what I did there ) in this passage. too many assumptions required for this to be true
leaves us with (B) and (D).
(B) is wrong because nothing is hidden, nothing is "covert".
thus (D) is the correct answer. There is nothing that I can find wrong with this choice. Its like a paraphrase of the relevant section in the passage.

[huskybins]

IMHO, C is wrong not because of "ethical standards"; "fairness" itself is part of ethical standards in no matter the legal systems of the present or the past. Rather, per the relevant part of the passage, it is wrong because such a maintenance work shall be done by "institutions" such as courts rather than "profession" such as lawyers for litigation parties.

Still, "effectiveness" is kind of by-product to maintain the fairness "historically" boasted by the institution per the passage. The logic relation is sort of like: "Prestige"-->"politically correct"-->"fairness (historically)" --> "effectiveness".

What I mean "fairness historically" above is that the modern legal system is just trying to be fair with all cases judged before, which may or may not be fair to cases to date in consideration of some contemporary factors as author suggested. Still, being aligned to "fairness historically" leads to the by-product of "effectiveness"; it is always easy and simple for the courts to apply one-clear-cut rule for all applicable cases. Therefore, doing so achieves the so-called "effectiveness".

[sanderina1987]

I'm still not quite clear why C is wrong. In the passage, it mentioned it was necessary to maintain the fairness (an ethical standard), otherwise it would be disappointing for the law students (professions) and the public (citizenry). Seems it matches with C quite well.

I can see why D is correct though.

[ohthatpatrick]

I agree; I hate these choices.

Conversationally, we're just saying the "political" reason for downplaying the historical 'accident' of common law is that it's not a good look for the legal system if seems like legal decisions over the years are haphazard and contingent on historical factors.

People will trust in the fairness of the law more if they think that legal decisions are bound by some transcendent logic.

If you agree with the meaning of what I've been saying above, and you reconsider (C) and (D), you might agree that (D) sounds much closer.

We're talking about AN INSTITUTION (the judiciary) trying to maintain people's respect for what they do.

I'm not sure I even understand what it means to "maintain ethical standards between professions and the citizenry". We're saying, make sure that the professional members are acting ethically as they deal with the citizenry? Make sure firefighters and plumbers and lawyers act ethically as they deal with the citizenry?

Does this have anything to do with whether law schools admit that the body of common law we currently have is heavily influenced by history?

[KenM242]

I'm still not quite clear why C is wrong. In the passage, it mentioned it was necessary to maintain the fairness (an ethical standard), otherwise it would be disappointing for the law students (professions) and the public (citizenry). Seems it matches with C quite well.

I can see why D is correct though.

I also picked (C) and got this one wrong.

It is clear to me now why the test writers included this choice: To get people like me who

1) Do not understand what (C) practically means
2) associating "demoralizing (from the passage)" with "ethical standards (C)" just because no other choices jumped out.


The kind of situation that (C) is talking about is the potential ethics issue between lawyers and their potential clients, i.e. general public. This is not one of the themes visited in the passage.


Now, the last part of the second paragraph, from which where we were supposed to get hints from, is saying that despite instances in history where laws have not been applied fair to those involved (i stand corrected as to how accurate my simplification is, but this is the best i can do), they have to teach the students as if it has been because if they reveal all the foul plays and contradictions, the students would not want to learn it, and the public would be like 'hey, that's not nice!' Here, 'demoralizing' means NOT that the city will turn into Gotham but simply lose enthusiasm and support for the legal education.

So obviously, if you try to match this summary with (C), the two don't exactly overlap. That's why (C) is wrong.

I'm terrible at RC, so someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

[MeganL677]

For the record, I wrongly chose E though I knew "radical" is a radical term...

I thought the "omission/ignore" made them look radical and "radical" is thus inferable.

Sometimes it's quite hard to draw the line between what's inferable and what's not. For me, both "effectiveness" and "radical" require certain assumptions. And I really had trouble to figure out what's inferable and what's simply out of scope...