Q2

[oslo90066]

This question stumped me because I referred back to lines 20-23, as referenced, to find the answer. However, it seems like the answer is in the last paragraph. I am wondering how one would approach a question like this, e.g. what is the thought process involved.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

You are exactly right. Sometimes the line reference can be helpful, but many times it does you no good to go back to the line reference and read the surrounding text.

In this case, you are being asked to describe the author's attitude, which most strongly takes form in the final paragraph. So while the dual obligation is enumerated in lines 20-23, the author's attitude is laid out in lines 40-48. I think you were more on track than you thought you were.

Good job!

[nfagin]

I literally just stared at this question for almost 30 minutes trying to figure out why the answer is E and not A. I kept referring back to the entire passage and could not find evidence that clearly distinguished the 2. Then I went word by word for A and saw that the competing responsibilities they list are between court and society, which are the same, not competing. The real competing interest is between the court/society and the defendant. Is this line of reasoning correct? If not, I have no idea what else is wrong with that sentence.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

That's another way of looking at it, and I went through and looked at your reasoning and I think that it's sound. In the beginning of the third paragraph the author says, "the lawyer's obligation to to the court and to society also ultimately benefits the defendant." So, the obligation to the court and to society are the same and so don't conflict as is suggested in answer choice (A).

Your careful reading is spot on!

[opulence2001]

Hi! Could someone please explain why B is wrong and E is correct?
Is the problem with B the fact that it says it "prevents" lawyers?

I interpreted B as saying that this two-fold obligation to follow this obligation means you can't represent guilty clients, which is what the author goes on to explain the two-fold obligation means in lines 26-28.

I didn't choose E because it seemed out of scope. No where does the author discuss a conflict of interest. It would be a good answer to a weakening the argument question, but we were supposed to consider the author's attitude.

[giladedelman]

Thanks for posting!

So, the author argues that lawyers have a twofold obligation: to the defendants, on the one hand, and to the court and society, on the other. You might think this would be tough to balance, and that the obligation to society might hurt the lawyer's ability to fully defend a client (especially a guilty one). However, in the next paragraph, the author points out that "the lawyer’s obligation to the court and to society also ultimately benefits the defendant, because the "best defense" can only truly be provided by an advocate who, after a careful analysis of the facts, is convinced of the merits of the case." So rather than conflicting with each other, the two obligations apparently reinforce one another.

That's why (E) is correct. Although the author doesn't explicitly mention "conflict of interest," we can infer from those comments that he or she doesn't believe that the obligation to society and to the defendant do not conflict with each other.

(B), meanwhile, is wrong for two main reasons. First of all, the author is concerned with how lawyers should behave. So the obligation doesn't "prevent" anyone from doing anything, because we're not talking about its effects; we're talking about how it should guide lawyers in their practice.

Moreover, the author doesn't say that lawyers shouldn't represent clients they know to be guilty. They shouldn't dishonestly argue that these clients are innocent, but they may defend them; "they should appraise the case as much as possible in their client’s favor."

(A) is incorrect, for one thing, because the obligation to court and society is the same obligation according to the passage; the distinction is between defendant, on the one hand, and court and society, on the other.

(C) is out of scope. The author doesn't address whether the obligation allows lawyers to uncover all the facts.

(D) is likewise out of scope. The author doesn't touch on common defense strategies -- nor is the author "pleased."

Does that clear this one up for you?

[antarias90]

Is it a proper observation to say also that the prompt is incredibly important for this question? I missed it as well by putting A, but A irked me the entire time because it said balancing responsibilities between court and society, which are not all of the responsibilities and not really the things being balanced here so much as the balance between court/society and the defendant's advocate.

However, after further reflection, this question said "two fold obligation INTRODUCED" in 20-23, meaning this is not limited to that section. Question 4 does a limiting prompt, but this one is simply saying that we should look at what is introduced in 20-23 and seek out other evidence relating to the author's attitude. Essentially, that changes the goal of the answer choice and our approach right from the get-go.

[ohthatpatrick]

You're definitely right that "introduced" opens the door for the fact that the topic may initially come into play in lines 20-23 but be further elaborated or touched upon later as well.

But I would also heed Matt's original comment that an Attitude question is almost always something of a big picture question, so we definitely should expand our sense of "what is this question testing?" to the whole passage.

You will normally still find one (maybe two) sentences that act as your concrete support for an Attitude question, but there's no reason to think that the author will reveal his attitude about something the first time that thing is mentioned in the passage.

Picture a typical LSAT passage in which the 2nd paragraph begins with "Some critics feel that ....". Normally, the author will dedicate a paragraph or two to their point of view before chiming in with his own BUT/YET/HOWEVER "I disagree" paragraph.

If LSAT wanted to ask about the author's attitude regarding those critics, it could say "Which of the following most accurately describes the author's attitude toward the critics mentioned in line 20?"

That line reference is just identifying who/what we're talking about. It's not saying that line 20 is where we'll find the author's attitude.

In this hypothetical case, we wouldn't actually get the author's attitude about these critics until many lines later in some subsequent paragraph.

Generally, question stems with line numbers have correct answers that are supported by a different sentence in the passage (sometimes it's a sentence immediately before or after the line number in the question, sometimes it's far away).

If LSAT wants to guide you to a specific sentence using the question stem, I think they're more likely to just provide keywords than to provide a line reference.

Happy hunting.

[shirando21]

I just reviewed the chapter of incorrect answers in manhattan reading book.

For this question, the twofold obligation is: 1)to the defendant 2) and to the court and society. We need an answer that reflects the author's attitude toward both 1) and 2).

Answer choice A only talks about 2), but does not cover 1), so I think the problem with this answer is a scope problem, it is narrowed scope or half scope.

Can we think this way to solve this problem?

[ohthatpatrick]

Nice call!

Yeah, you could probably call (A) either Half Scope or an Interpretation problem.

We could say (A) leaves out the responsibility to the defendant, so it's only Half Scope.

Or we could say (A) incorrectly interprets the passage as saying that the competing responsibility is between "court and society" rather than between "court/society and the defendant".

Ultimately, it doesn't matter how we label it. There is a lot of overlap to those incorrect answer categories. The key is recognizing how a trap answer points you to a specific sentence in the passage, and often uses mainly the same wording as that sentence, but somehow incorrectly communicates the same idea.

We just have to be very close, careful readers to recognize how an answer choice has distorted or gone beyond what was actually said.

Keep it up!

[SecondWind180]

I literally just stared at this question for almost 30 minutes trying to figure out why the answer is E and not A. I kept referring back to the entire passage and could not find evidence that clearly distinguished the 2. Then I went word by word for A and saw that the competing responsibilities they list are between court and society, which are the same, not competing. The real competing interest is between the court/society and the defendant.

Thanks for saving me a ton of time! My mind automatically inserted/assumed "defendant" (was) in there.

However, after further reflection, this question said "two fold obligation INTRODUCED" in 20-23, meaning this is not limited to that section. Question 4 does a limiting prompt, but this one is simply saying that we should look at what is introduced in 20-23 and seek out other evidence relating to the author's attitude. Essentially, that changes the goal of the answer choice and our approach right from the get-go.

Thanks! I don't think I ever would have caught this!
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I would also like to add additional support for (E). Line 46 explicitly uses the word "convinced".

[GuaguaD876]

Line 42-46 suggests there is no such conflict between the defendant vs. court and society.