Reading comp PrepTest 153 · Section 1 · Question 19

Passage

 Criminal courts frequently rely on accomplice witnesses (witnesses who testify regarding the role of an alleged co-conspirator in a crime) Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage SummaryTopic: Legal Studies

Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • A phenomenon is introduced
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Prosecutors use co-conspirator and jailhouse informant testimony
    • This includes supposed confessions
Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • A problem is noted
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Motive - These witnesses are promised something for their testimony, so they're motivated to lie
    • Study - They're rarely punished for lying
Paragraph 3
  • Paragraph note
    • A debate over the prior paragraph is explored
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Courts - Safeguards prevent lies from creating problems - e.g., cross-examination to ask about motives
    • Author - They don't always work, like when a prosecutor hints at instead of promising something
Paragraph 4
  • Paragraph note
    • More problems with allowing this testimony are highlighted
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Research - Juries give weight to confessions, even when based on an incentive
    • Similar to situation with cooperating witnesses
Paragraph 5
  • Paragraph note
    • An explanation is given for the jurors behavior in prior paragraph
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Psychological explanation - People explain actions of others by their character, not external factors
    • Study - Person who confessed was guilty, even if threatened or promised a reward for doing so
    • Similar to situation with cooperating witnesses
Main Point:
There are many problems with the use of co-conspirator and jailhouse informant testimony, and the safeguards in place aren't enough to prevent false testimony from sending someone to jail because of a psychological phenomenon affecting jurors.

Key Lines:
Lines 6-10 - The phenomenon debated is introduced
Lines 13-16 - The problem is introduced
Lines 20-23 - The opposing point (Courts) is introduced
Lines 25-26 - The Author's opinion is introduced
Lines 29-31 - The first specific problem
Lines 35-37 - The second specific problem
Lines 47-49 - A potential explanation for the problem is given

Meta-Structure:
Debate over Problem. Normally, we'd see a Problem/Solution passage, with the debate being over various solutions to a problem. Here, however, a problem is introduced, and while there is a "solution" raised (the safeguards such as cross-examination), it's given very little space in the passage. Rather, the Author spends most of the time highlighting why the problem is, well, a problem, and explains some underlying psychology.

Last Thoughts:
On top of everything said before about the exploration of a problem, it will likely be important that we note the comparisons/analogies on which much of the Author's argument relies. Paragraph 4 and 5 both talk about research to a similar situation, rather than the direct topic at hand.

The topic is about potentially false co-conspirator or jailhouse informant testimony. The research in Paragraph 4 deals with confessions from the defendants to investigators based on incentives. The studies in Paragraph 5 build on this, talking about confessions that were either based on threats or promises of leniency. In both cases, the study is on a direct confession by a defendant, not on testimony that the defendant confessed to an informant or a co-conspirator. The similarity here is that the juries are weighing this evidence, and the explanation for how they process it is based on a psychological tendency to blame people's character rather than their situation.

Question prompt

In using the phrase Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

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

Question Type

Legal

Answer choices

  1. A
    failure to properly take Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem
    Correct. Question Type:
    Must Be True

    Strategy Overview:
    Read the statement in question and the following line to get context, and define it in relation to the role of the paragraph and main point

    Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
    Heading straight to Paragraph 5, we can see that it's building off of the preceding paragraph, bringing up an explanation for something that happened there. In Paragraph 4, the Author discussed the ""undue weight"" that jurors give to direct confession evidence even when there's an incentive for the defendant to give a false confession. She then goes on to bring up studies showing that jurors wouldn't consider any threats or benefits offered for such a confession.

    So when she talks about the ""superficial examination"" of confession evidence, the situations and studies referenced both before and after talk about treating a confession as true even when there are incentives or pressure on the defendant to give a false confession. Let's find an answer reflecting that.

    (Note that we need to be careful here, as the example from Paragraph 4 deals with a defendant confessing, but the last clause of the paragraph draws a parallel between that and cooperating witness's lying. The last two paragraphs deal with direct confessions and then relate it to witness testimony, but the specifics all deal with the former, and thus so should the answer.)

    Answer Explanation:
    (Lines 41-42; Lines 49-56) The Author notes that jurors give special weight to direct confessions without considering incentives or threats that the defendants are under to confess. So the superficial examination discards these positive and negative motives, which are factors that may lead to that confession evidence. This answer is therefore correct.

    Key Takeaway:
    Compare this question to #18. In #18, the question specifically asked what was true ""[a]ccording to the third paragraph"". As such, the answer had to come from that paragraph. This question, however, references a topic in Paragraph 5 without stating that the answer comes only from that paragraph. Telling the difference between these two question types is important to tackling them efficiently.
  2. B
    failure to distinguish between Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 42-44; Lines 56-61) The Author relates a juror's behavior when considering direct confession evidence to their behavior when considering cooperating witness testimony. She doesn't say that the juror would confuse those two situations.
  3. C
    lack of the expertise Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 45-47) The Author claims that a psychological phenomenon explains this behavior—not relative levels of expertise.
  4. D
    unwillingness to assess the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    Incorrect. At no point does the Author question the willingness of a juror to assess the veracity of a witness.
  5. E
    tendency to disregard confession Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Incorrect. (Line 36; Lines 54-56) The Author argues that jurors give undue weight to confessions, not that they disregard it in certain circumstances!

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 76%
  2. B 6%
  3. C 11%
  4. D 5%
  5. E 2%

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