Q14

[bbirdwell]

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

(A) is a tough choice to recognize, until one sees that none of the other choices are good at all.

The paradox hinges on the word "yet" in line 16. Common law cannot be understood without a historical view, yet academic study doesn't treat it this way. The "new view," of course, is Goodrich's "literary" approach.

(E) would be, if anything, just the opposite of the passage. Don't get "traditional school of thought" confused with "history" here. The traditional school of thought would be the current, widespread one -- the one that doesn't place much significance on history, ignores the evolutionary nature of common law, blablabla. Furthermore, there is no trend mentioned, although a new idea is introduced in the final paragraph.

[theaether]

Wow I insta-crossed out A because of the word paradoxical. Sure, it might not be logical that they are ignoring the historical view, but paradoxical? That is really quite tricky because we could argue about the extent/degree of a paradox here. When does something go from "doesn't make sense" to a bona fide "paradox?" Thoughts?

[bbirdwell]

Well, this isn't exactly quantum mechanics or Eastern philosophy, but I think the paradox is pretty clear, and that the word is reasonably used here.

Common Law cannot be understood without history.
The academy doesn't use history to understand Common Law.

The point of the academy is to study, to understand. So this is paradoxical -- the "place for understanding stuff" is not doing something required for understanding something (common law).

[eapetrilli]

I too overlooked (A). The LSAT typically utilizes the concept of a paradox in LR, where we accept the premises as given and the paradox logically follows. However, the paradox in this passage only exists if we accept the author's opinion, and in RC we usually get multiple opinions with the author the overriding one. But since this is a question about the purpose, i.e. we only care about the author, can we say the author sets out to explain what he/she thinks is a paradox, even though it's not known for certain whether others agree that it's a paradox? What still troubles me about (A) is that we have no indication that the law schools or anyone else views this as a paradox. I guess I just frogot to enclose my thinking within the worldview of the passage.

[JorieB701]

Could someone please explain what B and D would look like, in the context of this passage, if they were in fact properly describing the purpose?

I ask because the abstract language of these questions tend to trip me up. I left A open as a possibility and ultimately ended up choosing it. For B, I didn't think this was merely a chronological summary but I wasn't confident enough to cross it out at first pass. The second part of D seemed reasonable but I wasn't sure about the "contrasting legal theories of past eras" part of it. Would would the passage have to look like in order for B or D to be correct?

Thanks!

[JorieB701]

Could someone please explain what B and D would look like, in the context of this passage, if they were in fact properly describing the purpose?

I ask because the abstract language of these questions tend to trip me up. I left A open as a possibility and ultimately ended up choosing it. For B, I didn't think this was merely a chronological summary but I wasn't confident enough to cross it out at first pass. The second part of D seemed reasonable but I wasn't sure about the "contrasting legal theories of past eras" part of it. Would would the passage have to look like in order for B or D to be correct?

Thanks!

I'm partially bumping this to illicit an answer but I'm revisiting this in review and thought I'd take a crack at it for evaluation:

Would B be right if the passage was still about why common law should be studied as something that is constantly evolving but the structure of the passage was more like, "originally they thought common law should be studied this way, and then this one thing happened in this year, so the prevailing opinion on it changed, and then here's how that played out and that's why we now study it this better way?"

And would D look like, "before there was this thing we refer to as common law, there were a couple of different prevailing legal theories and here's how they're different from common law as we know it, followed by where the author comes down on the question of which is better?"

Thanks.

[ohthatpatrick]

(B) is hopeless, so long as you keep the background that the author is arguing we SHOULD study common law in its historical context.

If the author has a prescriptive, opinionated tone, then a neutral "supply a chronological summary" would pretty much always fail to be a correct answer.

You ironically picked the two answers that are their favorite when it comes to Purpose-bait:
- summarize
- compare/contrast

I guess we did this so much in high school / college that we tend to still think in terms of these purposes.

LSAT authors always have way more specific points they are trying to make. It's never just a list / a summary. If they actually do tell a chronological story, it's still to highlight an interesting takeaway.

And I've never seen a passage where the author just neutrally compares/contrasts. An author will either present a complex debate (and stay out) or the author will get involved and side more with one than the other (at which point "compare/contrast" is too neutral).

(D) is way more tempting here than (B) because (D) has that redemptive second half that says the author is "suggesting how these theories should be studied".

The author is DEFINITELY suggesting how common law should be studied.

But common law isn't a legal theory. It's an "unwritten code of time-honored laws derived from custom and precedent".

Line 18 makes it clear that legal theories attempt to interpret common law. Common law isn't itself a legal theory.

If you kept (D) as is, then you'd need to change the entire passage and actually have it discuss any of the interpretive theories referenced in line 18.

The author compares/contrasts mainstream vs. atypical legal theories in lines 16-21 (most of them don't acknowledge history ... the exceptional ones that DO acknowledge history don't do a good job of connecting the history to the contemporary significance).

The author never compares/contrasts theories of the past vs. the present.

An easier way to fix (D) is to change the answer, not the passage.
(D) contrast the typical way that common law is studied with the way the author suggests that common law should be studied

(B) is pretty much irredeemable for this (and almost every other LSAT) passage.

A chronological summary of the history of an idea is pretty ambitious thing to fit into one column of text on one page.

[GolddiggerF208]

I have no idea why, as said in (A), it is a "new" view.