Q13

[linzru86]

Q13- I originally thought B was the correct answer because the "essential dimension" missing was the historical roots and development, but I didn't like the word "accuracy" I wasn't sure what was meant by this. Then I saw D and chose it because I felt like D brought up the specific tie to history and that the author believes students using modern academic theories would miss out on the historical aspect. Is the reason D is wrong because it is too specific by saying "legal disputes of the past" instead of something more broad like "the historical development of certain laws" for instance?

Q14- I don't understand how A is correct. What exactly is the paradoxical situation? I thought E was a better choice.

thanks!

[bbirdwell]

I agree that the word "accuracy" in (B) strikes a partially dissonant note in what is otherwise a stellar choice. We do know that the author thinks that the lack of the historical dimension is a bad thing, though, and we can infer that he thinks the addition of this dimension would be a good thing. And "increasing accuracy" sounds like a good thing. So, compared to the other choices, (B) is great.

(D) is off the mark by being too specific, going too far. The author never claims that students don't examine past cases, or even "certain laws," as you suggested.

The point the author is making is a bit more abstract -- that the law is best understood as having evolved rather than always existing as a complete set of rules. It is this evolution that is most important to our author, and better understanding history is an aid to understanding it.

I started a separate forum thread for Q14.

[marokh9]

Can someone please guide me through this question? I don't know why I am having such a hard time understanding it. Thank you in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

Before looking at the answer choices, we should try to find the question stem's keywords in the passage and re-read the applicable window of text to get a good pre-phrase going.

I would be looking for "most modern academic theories of common law". ("most" is a loaded term that LSAT doesn't use casually ... if I see 'most' in a question stem, I can be 99% sure that 'most' or some equivalent, like tends to / usually / generally, was used in the passage)

As it turns out, there isn't a great 'lock' for these keywords. The closest we get is 'academic study of jurisprudence has seldom treated common law" in 16-17, and then we get 'theories' in the second half of this sentence, after the semicolon. So the question stem for Q13 points us to this sentence.

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'Seldom' is equivalent to 'rarely, few', which means a minority. We can always rephrase those as most statements.

If I say that Bob seldom calls his Mom on Thursdays, we can rephrase that as "most Thursdays, Bob does NOT call his Mom".
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So what 16-21 is saying is, "most academic theories of common law do NOT treat common law as a constantly evolving phenomenon rooted in history, or if they do they leave out the practical contemporary significance of its historical forms".

The significance of this line comes from the previous sentence, lines 12-15, in which the author says that common law cannot properly be understood without a long historical view.

Combining line 12-15 with line 16-21, you get that most academic theories of common law do not treat common law in a way that will allow it to be properly understood.

This is tough stuff, for sure, but these two sentences ARE the passage. This is the author's main point/gripe.

So if Q13 seemed like it was looking for a needle in a haystack, it really isn't. It's still reinforcing the author's main point. If you revisit the correct answer D to Q7, you can see how we're echoing the same point in Q13.

If we go into Q13 with the pre-phrase of "the author is annoyed with modern academic theories of common law because they don't properly deal with its historical roots", then this might be how we'd see the answers:

(A) hmm, it's not about being 'overly detailed and stultifying (boring)'. It's about not capturing this historical context. Eliminate.

(B) Super generic, but we could say that the 'essential dimension' missing is the historical context. Keep.

(C) It wasn't about practical over theoretical. If anything, the historical context IS more practical than theoretical. Eliminate.

(D) This seems to focus on not properly dealing with history. Keep it.

(E) Art vs. science? Say whaaaat? Eliminate.

So between (B) and (D), we need to find a reason one of them is wrong.

For (B), can we say that adding the historical context would "increase the accuracy" of the theories? Well, since the author said that common law can't be "properly understood" without the historical perspective, then I guess giving students the means to have a PROPER UNDERSTANDING would be INCREASING THE ACCURACY.

For (D), can we say that the theories excuse students from studying important historic cases? No, this would contradict what we know from line 5, that students ARE required to study medieval cases.

So (B) has to be our answer.

While it's often helpful to have a simplified "caveman" paraphrase like "author mad because no history", we can see how (D) is a trap waiting for that oversimplified understanding.

The real nuanced complaint the author is making is NOT that students don't study historical cases, it's that common law is treated like some timeless, self-justifying theoretical system rather than "a constantly evolving phenomenon rooted in history" (line 17-18).

Hope this helps.