Reading comp PrepTest 151 · Section 1 · Question 4

Passage

Questions 1-6  .       The United States Supreme Court's 1948 ruling in  . Shelley v. Kraemer famously disallowed state courts  . Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Legal


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Author: Although Shelley is famous and celebrated, the legal rationale in the decision is problematic
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Definition of "racially restrictive covenant":
      • Property agreements that specify that only members of a certain race can occupy that property (second sentence)
    • Cause-and-effect relationship:
      • The Court's decision in Shelley disallowed a key instrument of housing discrimination (third sentence)
    • Author attitude: "famously disallowed" (first sentence); "justly celebrated" (third sentence); "problematic" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • The Court's "attribution" rationale in Shelley
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Definition of "Fourteenth Amendment":
      • Grants equal protection to all citizens (first sentence)
    • Comparison:
      • Fourteenth Amendment applies to state actions, but not private, individual actions (second sentence)
    • Definition of "attribution rationale":
      • The Fourteenth Amendment applies to private housing agreements because the Court might have to eventually enforce these agreements, and the Court is an instrument of the state (fifth sentence)
      • The Court can, therefore, only enforce agreements that could have been passed into law under the Constitution (sixth sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author: The "attribution" rationale could dissolve the distinction between state and private action
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Comparison:
      • Fourteenth Amendment limitations apply to state action, but not private activities (first sentence)
    • Example of courts not following Shelley's "attribution" rationale:
      • Settlement agreements can prevent parties from speaking publicly, even though this would be an unconstitutional violation of free speech (last sentence)
    • Author attitude: "threatened to dissolve the distinction" (first sentence); "Primarily for this reason" (third sentence)

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • Author: The most troubling part of Shelley was it concluded that racially restrictive covenants were legal
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • The real issue with racially restrictive covenants is their discriminatory content, not the courts' enforcement of them (last sentence)
    • Author attitude: "particularly noxious" (first sentence); "failed to target the genuine problem" (last sentence); "troubling" (last sentence)

Main Point: Although Shelley's ruling on racially restrictive covenants was momentous, the Court's stated legal rationale doesn't withstand scrutiny or address the real problem with such agreements.

Key Lines?

Paragraph 1, Sentence 1 (P1, S3) - The Court's decision

P1, S4 - The author's main point

P2, S5 - The Court's "attribution" rationale

P3, S1 - The author's main issue with the "attribution" rationale

P4, S2 - The author's other issue with the rationale

Meta-Structure?

Criticizing a Viewpoint: We think this passage applies the Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure*. The author dedicates much of this passage to lambasting the Supreme Court's legal rationale in Shelley v. Kraemer. Even though the author approves of the outcome of the Court's decision, the author does not believe the "attribution" rationale the Court employed can withstand scrutiny (P3, S2-3). Moreover, the author chides the Court for not addressing the actual problem Shelley invoked (P4, S2).

In a Criticizing a Viewpoint passage, the main point is generally the author's main criticism or a summary of the criticisms. Unfortunately, the author did not summarize the main point in one tidy sentence. So, we took the liberty to condense their objections: "Although Shelley's ruling on racially restrictive covenants was momentous, the Court's stated legal rationale doesn't withstand scrutiny or address the real problem with such agreements." 

*Some may argue that this is a Correcting the Record or Rebutting Critics, Meta-Structure — understandably so, since there's considerable overlap between these Meta-Structures and the Criticizing a Viewpoint Meta-Structure. If you went with either of these, that's OK! You'd wind up with the same main point and big-picture understanding of the passage described above. Some may even see this as a Paradox/Resolution passage — how could the author both celebrate Shelley for overturning an instrument of racism in housing contracts while criticizing the legal rationale in the case as problematic? Again, using this framework would help you come to the same understanding of the passage we did. Let's remember that the Meta-Structures are here to help us think about the overarching structure and ideas in a passage. We don't have to agree on which Meta-Structure a passage has to realize the benefits of the Meta-Structures.

Last Thoughts?

Legal passages don't require us to have background legal knowledge. After all, you'll go to law school after taking the LSAT. However, if you don't have background legal knowledge, it's imperative that you pause and absorb any legal term or concept that the passage defines. We recommend highlighting these legal terms to ensure that you give these terms adequate attention and to help you refer back to the definitions when necessary.

In this passage, absorbing the definitions of three legal concepts is paramount to understanding the logic of the Shelley case and its problems. First, the author defines "racially restrictive covenants" in the first paragraph. Knowing the self-evidently racist nature of such covenants can help us understand why the author can praise Shelley's outcome while still finding fault in the Court's legal rationale. In the second paragraph, we are told that the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, which the Court relied upon in making its problematic decision, grants equal protection to all citizens but only applies to government actions. Finally, the author defines the "attribution" rationale in the third paragraph, which the Court used to apply the Fourteenth Amendment to contracts made between private citizens.

If you had trouble following this passage, consider whether you didn't gain an adequate understanding of any one of these legal terms.

Question prompt

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

Credited answer: C

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

Question Type

Legal

Strategy Overview

Review the relevant part of the passage and notes, if necessary, to anticipate key features of the court's attribution rationale.

Answer Anticipation

These Application/Analogous Situation questions closely resemble Parallel Reasoning questions in Logical Reasoning. We want to find the answer choice structurally similar to the element we're asked to analogize. The correct answer won't have the same subject matter as the passage; instead, it will feature similar characteristics or themes as the element from the passage. Therefore, we should start by reviewing the key features of the element we're asked to parallel.In this case, we're asked to find an "attribution of responsibility" most analogous to the Shelley court's "attribution" rationale. The question stem points us to the second paragraph's definition of the "attribution" rationale: that courts can only enforce agreements that could have been passed into law under the Constitution (P2, S6). However, the author clarifies the court's reasoning behind the "attribution" rationale earlier in the paragraph. The author first points out that the Fourteenth Amendment only applies to state action, but the "attribution" rationale finds state action in some agreements made between private citizens (P2, S1-3). The author points out that contracts private citizens enter could be subject to the Fourteenth Amendment's requirements under the "attribution" rationale because courts would have to enforce that contract, since the court would enforce the contract on behalf of the state (P2, S4). Once the court gets involved, the "contracts substantive provisions should be attributed to the state." (P2, S5). Therefore, under the "attribution" rationale, it is unconstitutional for courts to enforce an agreement that the state could not legally enact into law. (P2, S6).In other words, the "attribution" rationale holds that once the state gets involved in private activity, the private activity becomes "attributable" to the state. So, we should look for an answer choice where an individual, group, or entity becomes involved with another's activity, and responsibility for that activity becomes attributed to the individual, group, or entity. This anticipation may sound rather broad, but we want our anticipation to be very general for these questions. This will help us assess the elements or themes of the answer choices independent of their subject matter.

Answer choices

  1. A
    If a trucking company Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this answer choice describe a situation where an individual, group, or entity becomes involved with another's activity, and responsibility for that activity becomes attributed to the individual, group, or entity?

    Not quite. The trucking company isn't getting involved with someone else's business. The trucking company is just doing a bad job running its own business and has to take responsibility for the consequences. Perhaps this would be correct if individual truckers failed to properly inspect their vehicles and the trucking company was held responsible because the truckers' failures were attributed to the company. But as written, this is not analogous to the state becoming responsible by getting involved with private individuals' business.

  2. B
    If an individual signs Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this answer choice describe a situation where an individual, group, or entity becomes involved with another's activity, and responsibility for that activity becomes attributed to the individual, group, or entity?

    Nope. This individual is just entering a contract and becoming responsible for the provisions of that contract. There's no attribution of responsibility to another individual, group, or entity who becomes involved with this contract.

  3. C
    If a newspaper publishes Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C matches the stem

    (C) Does this answer choice describe a situation where an individual, group, or entity becomes involved with another's activity, and responsibility for that activity becomes attributed to the individual, group, or entity?

    Pretty close! We have an entity — the newspaper —that becomes involved with another's activity — the columnist's op-ed. Responsibility for the op-ed becomes attributed to the newspaper since the newspaper can be held accountable for the op-ed's content.

    This is an imperfect match for the "attribution" rationale. Presumably, the newspaper and its columnist have a prior contractual relationship, which is quite different from the state and private individuals. Nevertheless, this features a critical feature of the "attribution" rationale, particularly the attribution of responsibility to another individual, group, or entity. Therefore, we should keep this as a strong contender and check the remaining answer choices. If none of the remaining include any element of our anticipation, we can eliminate the field and select (C) confidently.

  4. D
    If a person is Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this answer choice describe a situation where an individual, group, or entity becomes involved with another's activity, and responsibility for that activity becomes attributed to the individual, group, or entity?

    No. In this case, the non-hero is being held responsible for not getting involved with something instead of being held accountable for getting involved with something.

  5. E
    If a company discovers Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    (E) Does this answer choice describe a situation where an individual, group, or entity becomes involved with another's activity, and responsibility for that activity becomes attributed to the individual, group, or entity?

    No, this does not match. Like answer choice (A), this involves an entity that does a bad job running its business and has to accept the consequences. This might match if the company wasn't initially responsible for manufacturing and distributing the faulty product but had to issue the recall anyway. But (E), in its current construction, is not analogous to the "attribution" rationale.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 11%
  2. B 16%
  3. C Credited 56%
  4. D 7%
  5. E 9%

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