Q15

[blairped]

I was stuck between B and E. Can someone explain why E is wrong? Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

Sure thing.

Question type: Inference-Attitude

Keywords in question stem?
Yes. Author, Supreme Court's treatment of Native Americans

Can we find an applicable window of text? (several)
line 4-9: sometimes SC is more after political compromise than principles of law, but that's the nature of US judicial system

line 11-16: SC has been beneficial on most minor issues and not completely terrible on more important ones.

Pre-phrase
Something nuanced ... overall stressing positive, but acknowledging negative

ANSWER CHOICES
(A) "irreproachable" (CANNOT be criticized) -- way too extreme
(B) sounds like line 11-16
(C) refuted by lines 4-9
(D) 'misguided' is not the overall positive we wanted
(E) goes against 11-16 ... we know that SC has failed to be beneficial on a minority of minor issues and we can infer that SC has been partially, though not wholly, detrimental on major issues.

In more conversational terms, (E) is too positive. It's saying that the Court has hardly ever been harmful, and it was ONLY in a few minor cases.

The author's tone in the first paragraph indicates that the Court is often capitulating to the political climate of the day and angering the Indian nations. And the critics' remarks in lines 18-21 indicate that the Court is certainly not considered a big supporter of Native Americans.

The author's main purpose in this passage is not to convince us that the Court has been GREAT for Native Americans, but more like, "Hey, the Court hasn't been THAT bad."

[jm.kahn]

(E) goes against 11-16 ... we know that SC has failed to be beneficial on a minority of minor issues and we can infer that SC has been partially, though not wholly, detrimental on major issues.

In more conversational terms, (E) is too positive. It's saying that the Court has hardly ever been harmful, and it was ONLY in a few minor cases.

The author's tone in the first paragraph indicates that the Court is often capitulating to the political climate of the day and angering the Indian nations. And the critics' remarks in lines 18-21 indicate that the Court is certainly not considered a big supporter of Native Americans.

The author's main purpose in this passage is not to convince us that the Court has been GREAT for Native Americans, but more like, "Hey, the Court hasn't been THAT bad."

i think the bolded statement about why choice E is wrong in the previous quote is not correct. We just can't say that USSC's treatment of native americans has been harmful in more than a few minor cases. We just don't have information to support an assertion about how many or limit of the number of cases where US supreme court actually was harmful to native americans. The passage simply doesn't mention that.

All that passage says about supreme court not pleasing native americans is that in some cases it had to be "accomodating". That's a far cry from being harmful to native americans even in a few minor of cases.
B is the closest choice that can be inferred from the passage.