PrepTest 132

Topic: Legal

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Debate on the use of custom medical illustrations in court and opponents' view (most injuries are generic, so textbooks are fine)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Debate - Should custom-made medical illustrations be allowed in personal injury cases?
  • Author's view:
    • Debate and misinformation surrounding the topic (first sentence)
  • Opponents' view:
    • Most injuries are standard, so generic medical textbook illustrations are adequate (second and last sentences)
  • Author's attitude: "misinformation" (first sentence)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Opponents' second complaint (can improve weak cases) and author's rebuttal (inadmissible without expert testimony)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Opponents'/some lawyers' view:
    • Custom illustrations can be used to bolster a weak case when experts can't back up client's claim (first through third sentences)
  • Author's view:
    • Even if you can find an illustrator to do this, experts need to testify to accuracy (fourth and last sentences)
  • Author's attitude: "line of complaint" (first sentence); "appear to share" (second sentence); "think that they can" (third sentence); "mistaken" (fourth sentence); "would be inadmissible" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Opponents' third complaint (can distort accurate illustrations with emphasis and coloration) and author's rebuttal (custom illustrations simplify, unlike textbooks)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Opponents's view:
    • Emphasis/coloration/etc. can distort details, even if the illustration is technically accurate (first sentence)
  • Author view:
    • Professional illustrators strive for objective accuracy and can simplify images to the necessary information for judges/juries (second through fifth sentences)
  • Comparison, according to the author:
    • Custom illustrations can remove extraneous info that would be in a textbook (third through fifth sentences)
  • Example of complicated textbook illustration, according to the author:
    • Veins/arteries in a bone fracture case (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "strive for objective accuracy and avoid devices that have inflammatory potential" (second sentence); "for whose benefit" (fourth sentence); "so as to not confuse the issue" (fifth sentence); "would only get in the way" (last sentence)

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Author on the pros of medical illustrations (especially valuable at translating complex testimony)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Author's view:
    • Custom medical illustrations provide a visual representation of complex ideas, which is required to help most jurors understand expert testimony (first through last sentences)
  • Author's attitude: "especially valuable" (first sentence); "data whose verbal description would be very complex" (first sentence); "find difficult to translate mentally" (second sentence); "Since, for most people, adequate understanding of physical data depends on thinking at least partly in visual terms, the clearly presented visual stimulation provided by custom-made illustrations can be quite instructive" (last sentence)

Main Point: The complaints against custom-made medical illustrations are based on misinformation and misunderstandings, and since these illustrations can help jurors and judges understand complex facts and testimony, they're especially valuable.

Rebutting Critics: This passage most closely fits the Rebutting Critics Meta-Structure.* In such a passage, the author typically presents criticisms of the subject matter before mounting a defense against those critiques. In this passage, the author brings up a series of complaints against using custom-made medical illustrations in injury cases, only to rebut them one by one. Finally, the author asserts that they believe the use of custom-made medical illustrations are especially valuable in helping judges and jurors understand complex, technical medical testimony.

In a Rebutting Critics Meta-Structure, the main point is generally a summary of the author's defense. In this passage — since the author also makes a case for the use of custom medical illustrations — we should also include a summary of why the author endorses custom medical illustrations. So, we summarized the main point as: "The complaints against custom-made medical illustrations are based on misinformation and misunderstandings, and since these illustrations can help jurors and judges understand complex facts and testimony, they're especially valuable."

*That said, several other Meta-Structures from the Critical Meta-Structures family could apply to this passage. There is considerable overlap between the Correcting the Record, Criticizing a Viewpoint, and Rebutting Critics Meta-Structures, and any one of those could fit with this passage. Typically, when the passage frames the view the author corrects/rebuts as a misunderstanding or oversight, it’s best to consider the passage a Correcting the Record passage. If the view the author corrects/rebuts is framed as a criticism, it’s best to consider the passage a Rebutting Critics passage. If the author otherwise argues another view is wrong, unjustified, or misguided, it’s best to consider the passage a Criticizing a Viewpoint passage. We thought Rebutting Critics is the closest match to this passage — the view the author rebuts is framed as the "opponents'" view, after all — but any one of these Meta-Structure could help you understand the passage's organization and main point.

This passage largely falls into a common pattern of a Rebutting Critics passage, where the author describes and then rebuts each criticism, one by one. But but there's a notable exception — the complaint raised in the first paragraph. There, the author doesn't immediately jump in to say why the opponents of using custom-made medical illustrations are wrong in arguing that generic images would work just as well. However, she does circle back to this when she addresses the complaint in the third paragraph, noting that such generic illustrations from medical textbooks have details that can make it harder for judges and juries to understand them.

This leads us to a larger point — using these structures/patterns to help you simplify the arguments in passages can be very important. Without seeing this pattern, it would be very hard to connect this complaint from the first paragraph with the end of the third. But stripping the passage down makes it a lot easier to see these connections, so be sure to do so when possible. And it's usually possible — it's very rare that an RC passage doesn't have some type of repeated pattern to it!