Q12

[hwsitgoing]

Hello,

I'm wondering why C would be incorrect for 12. The third paragraph, specifically the last sentence, seems to say that the author does indeed think intellectual authority depends on convention, to an extent.

I can see how B might also make sense, but C seems to be more directly supported by the passage as something the author would not believe. Any help?

Thanks!

[lhermary]

I would also like to know this one. C seems to be the only logical answer.

[LSAT-Chang]

Where in the passage is there support for (D)???

[altate]

It seems like I'm not the only one struggling with this one. Instructors could you please help us out? Why is C incorrect?

Thank you!

[LSAT-Chang]

(C) is incorrect because the Q stem is asking us for something the author is "LEAST likely" to believe in, but we actually have evidence for (C) in lines 1-6. Intellectual authority DO NOT depend on convention (line 3) and institutional authory MAY depend on convention since institutional authority "may or may not possess intellectual authority, which never depends on convention" (line 6). If institutional authority possesses intellectual authority, then yeah, it won't depend on convention, but what if it didn't possess intellectual authority? Then insitutional authority MAY depend on convention -- we don't know. So the author is likely to believe in this, so it is not the correct answer.

However, I am still having trouble with (D). Where do we get evidence of this???

[maryadkins]

Good explanation for (C):

(C) is incorrect because the Q stem is asking us for something the author is "LEAST likely" to believe in, but we actually have evidence for (C) in lines 1-6. Intellectual authority DO NOT depend on convention (line 3) and institutional authory MAY depend on convention since institutional authority "may or may not possess intellectual authority, which never depends on convention" (line 6). If institutional authority possesses intellectual authority, then yeah, it won't depend on convention, but what if it didn't possess intellectual authority? Then insitutional authority MAY depend on convention -- we don't know. So the author is likely to believe in this, so it is not the correct answer.

This is a tough question; we have to remember we're choosing what the author would be least likely to agree with. Every answer choice is "extreme" in a sense--it tells us that one type of authority does something and the other "never" does. We can ask ourselves for each choice, would the author yell in protest if he heard this statement?

As it turns out, the right answer choice here is the only one for which we have evidence the author would disagree. For the others, we may not have evidence that the author would AGREE, but that's a separate question. We are looking for the statement the author would be least likely to agree with; we should go with the one for which we have evidence he/she would dislike it.

(A) is not something the author is likely to get riled up about. We're told in line 1 that intellectual authority doesn't depend on coercion; the rest of the paragraph heavily implies that institutional authority does ("to enforce" in line 5 is coercion).

(B) is correct. The author would not agree! Why? Because at the end of the passage, he/she says the opposite: legal systems have intellectual authority even though they are primarily institutional authorities (line 55). And intellectual authority is all about reasoned argument (line 1). We know that "some well-reasoned arguments" are not accepted by institutions (line 22), but that's only some. Besides, the implication of that statement is that some are accepted by institutions.

(C) is a lot like (A). Both refer back to different parts of the first paragraph. See the explanation above.

(D) is tricky. We know the author is likely to agree with the first part. The second part we don't know if the author would agree with (again, "never" is strong), but we also don't have evidence that he/she would DISAGREE with it. We DO have evidence that the author would disagree with (B).

(E) is like (D).

[WaltGrace1983]

I could be wrong, but I think you can also say (B) is correct due simply to what is said in line 5-6: "Institutional authority...enforces acceptance of arguments that may or may not possess intellectual authority."

[phoebster21]

I'm not sure if this is a good way to go about RC, but on a passage as back and forth as this one, I had difficulty keeping track of where everyone stood.

But I did look at question 11's stem to answer question 12.

Question 11 has the words "the author's contention that legal systems contain a significant degree of intellectual authority"

Thus, if you understood that the legal system is an example of institutional authority, then the author wouldn't agree with the fact that an institutional authority (i.e. the legal system) would NEVER accept well-reasoned arguments (i.e. intellectual authority)