PrepTest 128

[lcid:3608] Prep Test 128 LSAT — Reading Comp — S1 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 6-13  .        In many Western societies, modern bankruptcy  . laws have undergone a shift away from a focus Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Legal Studies


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Old Approach and New Approach
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Old Approach - Bankruptcy focuses on punishment
    • New Approach - Bankruptcy as a remedy for individuals/businesses/creditors
    • Critics - Trend to more bankruptcies is bad; we should go back to punishment
    • Author - New approach serves needs of society and lets people participate in economy, so it’s good

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Why Old Approach; Author’s rebuttal
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Old approach - Throw people in jail; dissolve businesses
    • Why? - Breaking social contract, need to be removed from society
    • Author - That doesn’t help anyone - creditors don’t get paid, businesses closing disrupts employees and customers

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • New approach - Underlying beliefs; mechanism; goals
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Underlying beliefs (2) - 1) public good is paramount; 2) public good better served with businesses existing and people not in jail (they can earn and pay back)
    • Mechanism - Courts reorganize debt and transfer assets
    • Still have punitive functions (Examples - public record of bankruptcy; affect credit rating)
    • Goal - Restore business/individual to economic health and get creditors paid

Main Point: Modern bankruptcy laws, with their focus on getting people and businesses back to economic health so that they can repay creditors, are better than the old punitive bankruptcy laws.

Key Lines?

Lines 1-6 - An Old Approach and a New Approach

Lines 6-9 - An argument to go back to the old approach

Lines 13-18 - Author’s overall opinion (pro New Approach)

Lines 24-29 - Why Old Approach adopted

Lines 29-34 - Author rebuts

Lines 54-59 - Author sums up her argument

Meta-Structure?

Old Approach/New Approach - The first sentence pretty explicitly raises an Old Approach to bankruptcy law and the shift to a New Approach. This strongly suggests that the Author is going to explore the two approaches to see which one is better, or take elements from each to recommend a “compromise” approach. In this case, we get the former - she concludes the first paragraph by stating that the New Approach “serve[s] the varied interests of the greatest number of citizens.” Paragraph 2 then explains why the Old Approach was adopted, but the Author then pivots away from that (Line 30 - “But”) to show why it wasn’t helpful. She then closes out the passage by spending the last paragraph arguing why the New Approach (modern bankruptcy law) is better - it is the most likely way to restore businesses, individuals, and creditors to economic health. When a passage falls into this Meta-Structure, the Author’s opinion of the New Approach is generally the main point. Since she argues in favor of it here, that should be our main point, as we stated above.

Last Thoughts?

Paragraph 3 had a series of elements in it that are likely to show up in the questions - underlying beliefs, a mechanism, and goals. Each of these are generally important on the exam, so we should have noted where each one is in the paragraph, and also kept quick notes on what they were. While it would take a bit of time to do that while reading, it should save us a lot of time on the questions!

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

Review the Author’s argument against punishing debtors, then find an answer that calls it into question

Answer Anticipation

First, let’s clearly identify the Author’s argument against the Old Approach - punishing debtors. Why does she think it doesn’t work?Because it risks preventing debtors from “continued economic activity” (Lines 9-13), thus preventing them from paying back their debt (Lines 29-31), and that this harms the overall economy while failing to serve the greatest number of citizens (16-18).So anything that calls this reasoning into question would weaken her argument. Let’s focus on answers that suggest people who are imprisoned for debt do tend to pay it back, or the punitive (and thus deterrent) focus of these laws has an overall bigger benefit for the economy.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Extensive study of the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) While this answer isn’t terrible, it’s just a bit too weak to affect the argument. First, exhibiting “greater” economic responsibility might mean that they only ended up owing a few hundred thousand instead of a few million. Second, even if most people later are more responsible, that doesn’t mean that the overall economy is better off - maybe their failure to pay back existing debt caused the economy to be worse off than if they had not gone to jail.

  2. B
    The bankruptcy of a Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) This is a weird answer. It says that the company went bankrupt, not that it closed. But then it suggests that it might have closed in that the employees needed to find other jobs. That lack of clarity is enough reason to eliminate this answer. But even if we assume the business closed, hurting the local economy is exactly why the Author doesn’t think businesses should be forced to close because of bankruptcy, so this answer lines up with her argument.

  3. C
    Once imprisonment was no Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) That’s a long time ago, and this answer has no information about recent trends, making it out of scope.

  4. D
    The court–ordered liquidation of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) This is such a tricky trap answer. However, the Author’s argument is that the overall economy would be better off if bankrupt companies are allowed to continue functioning rather than being dissolved. This answer establishes that the overall economy grew after a business was closed due to bankruptcy, but it doesn’t state that it grew more than it would have had the business been allowed to stay open. That’s the relevant comparison, so this answer falls short of weakening the argument.

  5. E
    Countries that continue to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem

    (E) This answer compares comparable countries using the Old Approach (punishment) versus the New Approach. Those that punish their debtors are seeing greater economic health than the others. While this doesn’t prove that the approach to bankruptcy is the relevant factor, it certainly suggests that it might be, thus undermining the Author’s argument that economies are better off when they don’t punish debtors. This answer is therefore correct.

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