Q22 - The writing styles in works...

[aileenann]

The apparent discrepancy in the fact pattern is the question of why dissenting judges write with high literary quality writing when such writing is more likely to be misunderstood than is less high literary writing. This is strange especially because judicial decisions themselves tend to avoid high literary writing, since they are intended as determinations of law.

We should look for the answer that addresses the dissenting judges’ style choice head on:

(A) could be tempting, but only if we make some sort of additional assumption about what impact multiple writers have on the writing style of an opinion. Regardless, it doesn't help explain the different between the decisions and dissenting opinions.
(B) applies equally to the official opinion and the dissenting opinion, so it does not explain why only dissenting judges seem to opt for the less clear writing style.
(C) is helpful because it indicates a difference between the judicial decision and the dissenting opinion. And it indicates a good reason why dissenting judges might be less likely to worry about ambiguity/etc than the authors of the decision in a case.
(D) has the same problem as (B).
(E) has the same problem as (B) and (D).

So (C) is our answer.


#officialexplanation

[Mab6q]

Can we please how some more discussion of A and C for this question.

I don't think either are particularly good choices, but I see how you could argue that because C mentions a factor that majority opinions don't have, it shows why high literary quality in one, the dissenting opinions, and not the other.

Isn't A a good choice too? Is it wrong because it doesn't have that differentiation that C has?

Thanks

[ohthatpatrick]

Yup, you nailed it!

(A) is just hopeless because it doesn't give us a conceptual wedge between writing the majority opinion and writing the dissenting opinion.

As Aileen said, there's also no real common sense bridge from "more than one judge influenced the writing" -> "high literary quality".

But even if there were, we would be left wondering, "Um ... are majority opinions written by only one person? Does only ONE judge have an influence on the way a majority opinion is written?"

When LSAT is asking us to Str/Weak a comparison between X and Y or to Explain a distinction between X and Y, answers that only tell you about half the equation don't normally do anything. If you just tell me something about X, I'll have to wonder if the same thing is also true of Y. Only a differentiation between the two helps move the needle on our ultimate goal of differentiating X from Y.

(C) is disguised because we need to pull a fact from the stimulus to see that this DOES distinguish dissenting opinions from majority ones.

Hope this helps.

[Mab6q]

Yup, you nailed it!

(A) is just hopeless because it doesn't give us a conceptual wedge between writing the majority opinion and writing the dissenting opinion.

As Aileen said, there's also no real common sense bridge from "more than one judge influenced the writing" -> "high literary quality".

But even if there were, we would be left wondering, "Um ... are majority opinions written by only one person? Does only ONE judge have an influence on the way a majority opinion is written?"

When LSAT is asking us to Str/Weak a comparison between X and Y or to Explain a distinction between X and Y, answers that only tell you about half the equation don't normally do anything. If you just tell me something about X, I'll have to wonder if the same thing is also true of Y. Only a differentiation between the two helps move the needle on our ultimate goal of differentiating X from Y.

(C) is disguised because we need to pull a fact from the stimulus to see that this DOES distinguish dissenting opinions from majority ones.

Hope this helps.

Thank you kind sir.