Reading comp PrepTest 131 · Section 4 · Question 10

Passage

Questions 9-15  .        A proficiency in understanding, applying, and even  . formulating statutes—the actual texts of laws enacted  . Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Legal


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Problem with legal education (too little time spent on understanding and applying statutes)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view
      • Law school's current focus on analyzing case law gives students the impression that lawyers don't really interpret or imply statutes, which is, in fact, a vital skill that law school gives too little attention to (first and last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "vital aspect" (first sentence); "given too little attention" (first sentence); "can give a law student the impression" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Why statute interpretation is an essential skill (legal practice involves consulting laws with not-obvious meanings/applications; tax ? example)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • Much of lawyers' practice involves interpreting and applying statutes, which have meanings and applications that are not always clear or obvious, so law students need to learn how to interpret statutes (first and last sentences)
    • Example of a situation where a lawyer would consult a statute, according to the author:
      • Business asking a tax question (second sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "does not depend" (first sentence); "clear" (third sentence); "transparent" (third sentence); "not always so obvious" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Another skill statutory interpretation builds (synthesis: seeing how laws interrelate; helpful because most students specialize)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparisons, according to the author:
      • Law professors do more to help students analyze individual cases than to help students see how laws interrelate and form a coherent system (second sentence)
      • Studying statutes in one area will do more than case analysis to help students see how laws interrelate and form a coherent system (third sentence)
    • Author's view:
      • Seeing how laws interrelate and form a coherent system in one legal area will help students apply this ability to other areas, which is important because most lawyers specialize (fourth and last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "would improve" (first sentence); "work hard" (first sentence); "favor" (second sentence); "would enable" (third sentence); "would then be able to apply this ability to synthesize in other areas" (fourth sentence); "especially important" (last sentence)

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • Counterpoint (laws vary by region) and author's defense (some truth, but understanding is a skill that transfers)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Counterpoint:
      • Statutes vary throughout the country, so statutory analysis is not a good idea for national schools (first and second sentences)
    • Author's view:
      • Knowledge isn't transferable, but skills acquired in mastering one set of laws are (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "possible argument" (first sentence); "some truth" (second sentence); "could seem to be an inappropriate investment" (second sentence); "the skills acquired in mastering a particular set of statutes are" (last sentence); "important undertaking" (last sentence)

Main Point: The current focus on analyzing cases in law school doesn't prepare law students for all aspects of their practice, so focusing on interpreting, synthesizing, and applying states would improve legal education.

Meta-Structure?

Problem/Solution: This passage best fits the Problem/Solution Meta-Structure.* The author kicks this passage off with a problem — the current focus of law schools excludes statutory interpretation, a key skill set that attorneys need. And while the author never explicitly states it, they strongly imply a solution — teach those skills! While the author doesn't make that recommendation explicit, they talk about its benefits and defend it against a possible counterargument, so we should view this as a Problem/Solution passage.

In such a passage, the author's preferred solution is the main point. And since the author goes into some detail on which specific skills related to statutes should be taught, those could be reflected in the main point, as well.

*That said, you could certainly call this an Old Approach/New Approach passage, with the "Old Approach" being law schools' current focus on case law and the "New Approach" including statute analysis. We just need to remember that there's no indication that the author wants to throw out the study of case law — just ensure that students are also learning skills related to statutory law.

Last Thoughts?It's rare to see a central solution to a problem implied instead of directly stated, as we see here, but it does happen. When the author argues that an action has benefits (and defends it from counterarguments), you can generally infer that they want to perform that action, even if they never say that explicitly.

Question prompt

Which one of the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Legal

Strategy Overview

Refer to notes or what you highlighted/underlined to locate where the passage discusses a reason for not including statutory law training in law school, and refer to the relevant part of the passage as needed to find that answer choice that must be true

Answer Anticipation

For questions that ask us to find a specific detail mentioned in the passage, quickly finding and reviewing that piece of information is paramount. That is why we make brief notes describing the role of each paragraph and highlight or underline definitions and the minor Meta-Structures — doing so helps us find the salient information efficiently and reliably. Once we review that part of the passage, we can look through the answer choices to see which one is best supported by what we reviewed.Here, the question asks for a reason why law schools might not include statutory law training. Where did the passage bring up that? Our note for the fourth paragraph is, "Counterpoint (laws vary by region) and author's defense (some truth, but understanding is a skill that transfers)." That, helpfully, gives us one potential answer — law schools don't provide statutory law training because statutes typically vary from region to region.Most test-takers would be content to use that as our anticipation. But if we wanted to exercise caution, we could double-check the fourth paragraph. There, the author says that one argument against training in statutory law is that "many statutes vary from region to region within a nation," and thus learning about one set of statutes doesn't transfer to another (P4, S1). That directly reflects the language from our initial anticipation, so let's find an answer choice to this question that matches up with it.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Such training would divert Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this say that law schools don't provide statutory law training because statutes typically vary from region to region?

    Nope, so we can eliminate (A). Besides, no one ever "ranks" the importance of these two sets of skills or states which is required more often, so this comparative answer is unsupported.

  2. B
    Such training is not Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this say that law schools don't provide statutory law training because statutes typically vary from region to region?

    No, so we can eliminate (B). Besides, the passage doesn't claim that these skills are functionally equivalent. In fact, the author implies that learning case law doesn't necessarily help lawyers apply statutory law (P2, S1).

  3. C
    The goals of such Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this say that law schools don't provide statutory law training because statutes typically vary from region to region?

    Negative, so we can eliminate (C). Besides, there are a few issues with this answer choice. First, the author claims early on that learning skills relating to statutory law is directly relevant to "much of" the practice of law (P2, S1). Second, the objection raised doesn't talk about the goal being better achieved through other means (P4 S1).

  4. D
    Such training would be Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this say that law schools don't provide statutory law training because statutes typically vary from region to region?

    Again, no, so we can eliminate (D). Besides, the author only claims that learning to synthesize statutory law is "especially" important for students who specialize (P4, S3). This skill might still be important for all lawyers, even those who don't specialize.

  5. E
    The lack of geographic Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem

    (E) Does this say that law schools don't provide statutory law training because statutes typically vary from region to region?

    Let's go. The "lack of geographic uniformity among statutory law" is just another way of saying "statutes typically vary from region to region." And this accurately conveys why the lack of uniformity is cited as a reason to avoid studying statutory law in law school — it makes knowledge gained of the statutes in one region "not generally applicable" to other reasons (P2, S1). This answer reflects that by saying that the statutes learned for one region can't be transferred to another, so this is the correct answer.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 2%
  2. B 1%
  3. C 1%
  4. D 1%
  5. E Credited 95%

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