Reading comp PrepTest 125 · Section 3 · Question 4

Topic: Legal

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Current focus of scholarship and author’s interest in Marshall’s strategy/methodology
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Traditional scholarship on Marshall:
    • Marshall’s time as Supreme Court Justice
  • Author’s focus:
    • Marshall’s technical legacy — how his work with the NAACP was strategically/methodologically innovative
    • Marshall’s innovation — how he predetermined and carefully crafted/coordinated legal strategy
  • Author’s attitude: “reveals a strategic and methodological legacy” (lines 9-10); “forever changed the landscape of public interest law” (lines 14-15); “meticulously crafted and carefully coordinated” (lines 19-20)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • One aspect of Marshall’s innovative strategy (the test case strategy)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • List of Marshall's innovations:
    • Item 1: Test case strategy — picking cases that have a good chance of changing law and feature sympathetic litigants
  • Author’s attitude: “careful evaluation” (line 23); “essential element” (line 27); “carefully selected” (line 31)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Another aspect of Marshall’s innovation (use of sociological and psychological stats) and criticism of it
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • List of Marshall's innovations:
    • Item 2: Sociological and psychological stats to show public harms in violation of constitutional principles
  • Example of stats Marshall used:
    • The harm of segregation
  • Criticism of Marshall’s use of stats:
    • Gives judges non-legal reasons to reach fuzzy legal decisions

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Marshall’s legacy on public interest law
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Author’s view:
    • Public interest firms have increased and used these strategies
    • The legacy is somewhat unexpected, since Marshall’s strategy is used for both consumer advocacy and conservative purposes
    • But Marshall’s strategies are the norm today
  • Author’s attitude: “grown substantially” (line 48); “widely adopted” (lines 48-49); “might seem surprising” (line 57); “have become the norm” (line 61)

Main Point: Focusing on Thurgood Marshall’s work with the NAACP highlights innovative strategies he developed in the field of public interest law that have become standard in that practice today.

Lines 17-20 - Marshall’s innovation

Lines 21-25, 30-32 - One aspect of the innovation

Lines 34-35 - Another aspect of the innovation

Lines 40-42 - A criticism of this second aspect

Lines 57-59 - A surprising aspect of his legacy

Lines 61-62 - His legacy

Innovative Subject: While much more common in Humanities passages, a discussion of a subject’s innovation is one of the most common Meta-Structures in the RC section. Here, the passage focuses explicitly on innovations spearheaded by Marshall and the NAACP in the public interest space. The innovation is described in Lines 17-20, two aspects are then explored through Paragraphs 2 and 3, and the legacy of these innovations (including a surprising one) is discussed in Paragraph 4. When a passage falls into the Innovative Subject Meta-Structure, the main point focuses on that innovation, as reflected in our main point above.

Examples: The passage provides a couple of examples in a few places. First, the author discusses examples of the type of sociological and psychological statistics used by Marshall in his innovative strategy (Lines 35-37). Later, the author presents examples of groups that have used this strategy in more recent times (Lines 51-54). Both of these are fairly limited in scope and back up minor points made by the author, so we should expect a question or two on them, but they won’t be a major focus of the questions.

One element that has a solid chance of being the feature of a question is the “surprising” use of Marshall’s strategy by conservative public interest lawyers. When an author notes that something is surprising or unexpected, it almost always gets asked about, so be sure to note such features when they show up!