PrepTest 136

[lcid:3640] Prep Test 136 LSAT — Reading Comp — S1 Reading comp

Passage

Questions 8-14  . Passage A  .        In this appeal of his criminal conviction, the  . defendant challenges the fingerprint Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Legal Studies


Passage A

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Defendant’s argument
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Defendant - The fingerprint evidence at my trial should be discounted
    • Reasoning - There are no studies showing no two people have the same fingerprints

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • More reasoning behind Defendant’s argument
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • No established error rates
    • Method - No objective standards (e.g., points of identification)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author IDs herself, disagrees with Defendant
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Author is judge in appeals court
    • Concession - Not scientific law
    • Defendant is wrong - fingerprint evidence OK
    • Fingerprints used for 100 years
    • Concession - Better standards and testing desirable

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • More rebutting of Defendant
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Concession - Different agencies have different requirements
    • Method - All examiners held to same “points and characteristics” approach
    • Regular testing and training with uniform standards
    • Trial court was right to allow evidence

Passage B

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Author criticizes fingerprint evidence
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • No objective standards on when two fingerprints match
    • One method - Ridge matches, but no consensus on number
    • Another method - Holistic

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Questions about fingerprint reliability
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Question set 1 - How likely is each “number” of ridge matches?
    • Question set 2 - Partial matches being wrong?
    • No one can answer, but answers are important

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Question - error rate?
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • One study - Few to no errors
    • Criticism of study - Too lax
    • Another study - 34% error rate

Main Points:

Passage A - While further testing and development of fingerprint matching is desirable, this type of evidence has a long history of being successfully used in trials, and examiners are held to high standards, so the Defendant is wrong to try to get that evidence thrown out.

Passage B - There are too many questions and not enough answers about the reliability of fingerprint evidence.

Key Lines?

Passage A:

  • Lines 3-4 - One viewpoint is defined
  • Lines 8-9; Lines 11-12 - That argument’s key elements are stated
  • Lines 21-23 - The Author identifies herself and rebuts the other viewpoint

Passage B:

  • Lines 36-37 - The Author’s viewpoint is stated (right out the gate!)
  • Lines 50-52; Lines 53-56 - Questions that undermine the implied opposing point are asked
  • Lines 61-62 - Another question that undermines the implied opposing point

Meta-Structure? Relationship Between Passages?

These passages both discuss the same topic - the reliability of fingerprint evidence. Passage A ultimately rules that such evidence is reliable enough to be admissible in a criminal trial (Lines 33-35), while the Author of Passage B brings up many questions about reliability that haven’t yet been answered (Lines 50-52; Lines 53-56; Lines 61-62). So they have different opinions on that central topic.

Question/Answer - Passage B relies a lot on questions that don’t have answers to show that fingerprint evidence just isn’t at the point where it needs to be for us to feel that it’s reliable evidence. In general, the Author’s answer to questions raised is the main point of the passage. Here, however, since the Author’s point is that there are no definitive answers to these questions, that’s the main point.

Last Thoughts?

Passage A has an Author that is more clearly defined than most authors are. While we can generally get a sense of the profession or at least field that a given author works in, here, we know that the Author is the judge in an appeals court, ruling on a Defendant’s appeal. That specificity might very well show up in a question, and it should color all of our answers that we select that reference the Author of Passage A.

Passage A actually has quite a few concessions. The Judge concedes that fingerprint identification isn’t a scientific law (Lines 24-26), it could have more consistent standards (Lines 19-21), and agencies do have different degrees of correlation required for a match (Lines 24-26). All of this means that, while she does reach a definitive conclusion, her viewpoint isn’t absolute - she believes that, while wrong, the opposing view/the Defendant has some valid points.

Passage B’s Author also has a weaker opinion than we might expect based on the overall argument. While he believes that there isn’t sufficient information to conclude fingerprint evidence is reliable, that’s not the same as saying fingerprint evidence is bad and is unreliable. His view is that more studies have to be done to determine the reliability - he may very well agree that, should it prove to be accurate a certain percentage of the time, it’s good evidence.

With these last two notes in mind, we have to be careful about what we commit the authors to, and what we say they disagree over. They both have more moderate views than might be initially apparent, so there’s more overlap in what they think might be the case than we might think.

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 main point of both passages and identify where they overlap

Answer Anticipation

This is an interesting question. We know that the authors of the passages largely disagree on whether fingerprint evidence is reliable enough. This question, though, is asking for a principle that underlies the arguments in both passages. So there must be some underlying principle that both appeal to, but both have differing opinions on how fingerprint evidence lines up with it.So, in other words, we’re looking for a central concern in both over which they disagree on how the details reflect it. That central concern will be the principle they’re appealing to.So what does the Author of Passage A consider in determining fingerprint evidence is reliable enough? She has two main points. First, it’s been used in criminal trials for 100 years (Lines 16-17), with experts agreeing that it’s reliable (Lines 18-19). Second, experts are held to a consistent approach (Lines 27-28) and that they’re regularly tested to see if they meet proficiency requirements (Lines 30-31) while receiving training that meets uniform standards (Lines 31-33).And what does the Author of Passage B consider in determining fingerprint evidence hasn’t been shown to be reliable enough? He looks at the “lack [of] objective standards” (Lines 36-37) and the fact that “[n]o fingerprint examiner can answer” questions about reliability.Where’s the overlap there? Both appeal to objective standards, with the Author of Passage A concluding that such standards exist, while the Author of Passage B concludes that they don’t. So each passage has, as an underlying principle, the idea that objective standards are necessary for fingerprint evidence to be reliable - even if they disagree on whether that bar has been met.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Courts should be extremely Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) (Lines 17-18) Passage A appeals to the acceptance of fingerprint evidence over the past 100 years, but Passage B doesn’t mention withstanding the test of time.

  2. B
    Defendants should have the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) (Lines 16-17) The Author of Passage A ultimately decides that a trial court was right in allowing fingerprint evidence, but she never states whether or not allowing such a challenge in the first place should be allowed. And Passage B doesn’t mention challenging evidence at trial at all.

  3. C
    To evaluate the value Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) (Lines 52-59) While Passage B brings up this information as something that is “critical” to determining the reliability of fingerprint evidence, Passage A doesn’t bring up partial prints at all.

  4. D
    Fingerprint identification should not Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) (Lines 33-35) The Author of Passage A judges that a trial court was right to conclude fingerprint identification has an “exceedingly low error rate” without establishing that rigorously conducted studies have shown it to be true. And the Author of Passage B brings up a rigorous study that shows a relatively high error rate for fingerprint matches.

  5. E
    Fingerprint examiners must follow Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem

    (E) (Lines 31-33; Lines 36-37) The Author of Passage A, in supporting the use of fingerprint evidence, appeals to the “uniform standards” that training and peer review have established. The Author of Passage B, in arguing that fingerprint evidence hasn’t been shown to be reliable enough, brings up the “lack of objective standards” for fingerprint examiners. So while they disagree on whether such objective standards exist, they both appeal to them in discussing the reliability of fingerprint evidence, making this the correct answer.

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