PrepTest 125

[lcid:3598] Prep Test 125 LSAT — Reading Comp — S3 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 1-7  .        Most of what has been written about Thurgood  . Marshall, a former United States Supreme Court Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

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.

Key Lines?

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

Meta-Structure?

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.

Last Thoughts?

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!

Question prompt

Based on the passage, 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

Review the main point, and use notes or highlighted/underlined text in the passage to recall the author’s attitude, and find the answer that best reflects your understanding of the main point/author’s attitude

Answer Anticipation

This question asks us about the author's view, but doesn't provide any insight into the topic of the correct answer or where the supporting information might show up in the passage. This means the correct answer is likely to relate back to the author's main point. As such, we'll need to rely on our big-picture understanding of the passage to answer this question. We should start by reminding ourselves of the main point (either by reviewing what we said after reading the passage or by rereading our answer to the main point question). We can also review any notes about the author's attitude or any text we highlighted because it expressed the author's opinion. After doing that, we can head to the answer choices, tabling those that don't line up with the main point. For those answer choices that conform to the author’s main point, we'll use our notes and the passage to see if it's correct.

Answer choices

  1. A
    In light of a Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this seem consistent with the author’s main point or what you recall about the author’s opinions?

    Not exactly. While the Author’s main point is that commentary has failed to recognize the technical achievements in litigation strategy pioneered by Marshall, the author never alleges that we should reevaluate his his accomplishments on the Supreme Court. Therefore, this answer is incorrect.

  2. B
    The most controversial of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this seem consistent with the author’s main point or what you recall about the author’s opinions?

    Not really. Additionally, this answer choice has strong, hard-to-support language (“most controversial,” “most unequivocally successful”) that would scare away some expert test-takers.

    If we had to review the passage to verify whether (B) is supported, there are two places where it’s suggested Marshall’s methods were controversial. The first is in Paragraph 3, tied to his use of statistics, but the author never indicates that this strategy was the most unequivocally successful. The second is in Paragraph 4, and there the author lumps all of his methods together. So this answer is incorrect.

  3. C
    Lawyers representing private interests Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this seem consistent with the author’s main point or what you recall about the author’s opinions?

    Nope. The main point of the passage is that Marshall’s methods were innovative, including his use of sociological statistics. They wouldn’t be particularly innovative if someone else had used them before, even if it was in private work instead of public interest work!

  4. D
    In response to Marshall's Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this seem consistent with the author’s main point or what you recall about the author’s opinions?

    Not really! The author says that the number of public interest law firms in the US has grown substantially in the time since Marshall’s work with the NAACP. That would be a weird thing to say if there were none before that time!

  5. E
    Marshall's techniques lend themselves Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem

    (E) Does this seem consistent with the author’s main point or what you recall about the author’s opinions?

    This is consistent with the author’s claims in the last paragraph. The author notes that, as a part of Marshall’s legacy, his strategies have been used by “conservative public interest lawyers,” which “might seem surprising” based on his ideological perspective. This answer is therefore supported.

What this tests

Discussion

  • (A) 2 replies

    Started by Julie-V

  • Suggestion 1 reply

    Started by UMAR-JAMIL

  • Cocaine 4 replies

    Started by RKHanda13

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