Q15

[seychelles1718]

Why is E wrong?

I eliminated because "dramatically" seemed unsupported.

[ohthatpatrick]

"Dramatically" is definitely extreme, so it would similarly be a red flag for me.

Additionally, "more often than not" is very quantitatively precise. Do we know it works more than 50% of the time?

Also, ask yourself, "What IS the goal of stealing thunder?"

I would say something like, "The goal is to lessen the sting of bad information about your client by OWNING it, before the opponent gets a chance to bring it up first and make it seem like a game changer."

(E) is making it sound like the goal is just to "dramatically precede" the opponent bringing it up. What does that even mean to "dramatically precede" something .... say it WAY EARLIER? or say it earlier in whatever timing manufactures the most drama?

In either case, it seems off.

(A) Correct. This is the goal of stealing thunder. Make the negative information feel less damaging by acknowledging it before the opponent can use it as some big attack moment.

(B) "A set of counterarguments" gets too specific. Maybe sometimes lawyers would acknowledge damaging information and then give the jurors a justification that lessened the impact of the information, but "providing a set of counterarguments" is too specific. It's not inherently the point of stealing thunder.

(C) "invariably" ... I'm done reading this.

(D) "forcefully capturing attention" and getting more FOCUS out of the jury? That's not what stealing thunder is about.