PrepTest 152

[lcid:3706] Prep Test 152 LSAT — Reading Comp — S3 Reading comp

Passage

Passage A  The legal system rests on the assumption that people use conscious deliberation when deciding how to act—that is, Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Legal


Passage A

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Problem: The legal system assumes people have free will, but some behaviors occur without free will
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Example of behavior that lacks free will:, according to the author
      • People with neurological disorders may involuntarily form facial expressions (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Question: Do all actions occur without free will?
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • The crucial legal question is whether all of our actions are beyond our control
      • Neurological evidence shows that all parts of the brain are interconnected, suggesting that no part of the brain is free (second and last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "crucial" (first sentence); "suggests" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Answer: If free will does exist, it has only a small impact on our decisions
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • If free will exists, it is at best a small factor in our decision-making, which is shaped by our genes and environment (first and sentence sentences)
      • Free will may be so small that we think of bad decision-making in the same way as a physical affliction (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "seems clear" (first sentence); "at best be a small factor" (second sentence)

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • Solution: Rather than considering blameworthiness, the legal system should consider how one will act in the future
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • Blameworthiness is a backward-looking concept that requires untangling genes and environment and thus should not be considered in the legal system (first and second sentences)
      • The legal system should instead consider how an accused lawbreaker is likely to behave going forward (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "should thus be removed" (first sentence); "backward-looking concept" (second sentence); "impossible task of untangling the hopelessly complex web" (second sentence); "has to become" (last sentence)

Passage B

Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Question: If people lack free will, how can the law move away from blame?
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • Rational arguments won't fully answer the question of how blame can be removed from the law (first and last sentence)
    • Points of intersection with passage A:
      • The author of passage B acknowledges that people may lack free will, just like the author of passage A (first sentence)
      • The author of passage B also acknowledges that blame plays a central role in the law, just like the author of passage A (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "paradox" (first sentence); "Rational arguments will only get you so far" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Support: Evidence suggests that blame is deeply rooted in how humans think, so it's doubtful that blame could be removed from the law
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • Evidence suggests that humans make moral judgments even when they think behaviors are governed by physical processes (first sentence)
      • The concept of blame is deeply ingrained in our psyche, and no amount of will get rid of our reliance on blame (last sentence)
    • Point of intersection with passage A:
      • The author of passage B is considerably less hopeful that blame can be removed from the criminal justice process (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "indicates" (first sentence); "deeply rooted" (last sentence); "considerable doubt that any amount of scientific evidence can remove it" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Support: We have tried and failed to get rid of the concept of blame
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • Rehabilitation was accepted by criminal justice experts in the mid-twentieth century, but public support waned (first through third sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "the public seems unwilling" (last sentence)

Paragraph 4

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's conclusion: The concept of blame much have a useful function, so the criminal justice system should try to understand it
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Author's view:
      • Blaming is so much a part of the social life of humans that it must perform some useful social functions (first and second sentences)
      • The criminal justice system should seek to understand blame and respect the underlying social needs (last sentence)
    • Point of intersection with passage A:
      • The author of passage B wants to keep blame in the criminal justice system, while the author of passage A wanted to remove it entirely (last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "My sense is that blaming performs some useful social function" (first sentence); "too intrinsically part of the social life of human beings for me to see it as a worthless appendage that can be harmlessly amputated" (second sentence): "should also seek a better understanding of why people blame and try to continue to respect the underlying social needs" (last sentence)

Main Points?

Passage A: The concept of blame should not be part of the legal system.

Passage B: The concept of blame is too integral to the social life of humans to be removed from the legal system.

Key Lines?

Passage A:

Paragraph 2, Sentence 1 (P2, S1): The question to be answered

P3, S1: Author's subsidiary conclusion

P4, S1/S3 - Author's main conclusion

Passage B:

P1, S1: The question to be answered

P2, S2: Author's opinion

P4, S1 - Author's main conclusion

Meta-Structure? Relationship Between Passages?

Relationship - Opposing Viewpoints: The authors of these two passages come to different conclusions. According to passage A, blame should be removed from the legal system. To the author of passage B, blame cannot be fully removed from the legal system, so the legal system should attempt to understand and respect blame's social function.

Interestingly, the authors stipulate the same premise. They both accept the possibility that people lack free will. Passage A provides some evidence for the lack of free will (PA, P2), whereas passage B conditions the entire argument on the assumption that people lack free will (PB, P1, S1).

Meta-Structure - Question/Answer: Passages A and B seek to answer the same question: should the legal system include the concept of blame? To find the main point of each passage, we can look for each author's answer to that question.

Last Thoughts?

These passages address almost identical topics with no major difference in the scopes of their arguments. Therefore, we should expect most questions will ask about the similarities, differences, and points of intersection between the two passages.

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 passage B's argument, determine weaknesses in the argument to anticipate how to weaken it, and select the answer choice that makes the argument less convincing

Answer Anticipation

We'll approach Weaken questions in Reading Comprehension in a very similar manner as we would in Logical Reasoning. We can review the excerpt from the passage, just like we'd carefully read an argument in LR. We'll then interrogate the claim for any weaknesses, as the correct answer on both RC and LR will probably weaken the claim by exploiting a problem. Additionally, causation flaws are commonplace on Weaken questions in both RC and LR, so we should be especially mindful of those.According to our notes, the main point of passage B is that the concept of blame is too integral to the social life of humans to be removed from the legal system. To support this claim, the author relies on evidence that blame is "too intrinsically a part of the social life of human beings" to be easily removed from the criminal justice system (PB, P4, S2). The author also cites the mid-twentieth-century attempt to remove blame from the criminal justice apparatus and the public's swift push to return to a more retributive form of justice (PB, P3, S2-3).Our goal is to weaken this argument, so we can start by identifying weaknesses in the author's reasoning. The author's argument isn't causal. However, a few other flaws may become apparent. First, the author makes very sweeping statements about the blame being central to "the social life of human beings" (PB, P4, S2) and that blame is "deeply rooted in the human psyche" (PB, P2, S2). These are broad, universal claims. But the author doesn't provide enough evidence to show that all human beings feel compelled to blame others. Therefore, an answer choice that shows that many human beings, communities, or societies do not feel the need to blame would weaken the author's claim that blame is an intrinsic part of human nature.Moreover, the author commits a temporal flaw when referring to the mid-twentieth-century attempt to focus on rehabilitation rather than retribution in the criminal justice system. Just because the public couldn't accept that change in the past doesn't mean that the public will never be able to accept such a shift. Maybe the public now has a better understanding of how genes and environment determine one's actions, and they are less inclined to blame lawbreakers for their actions.That said, many things could feasibly weaken the author's argument, so we should keep an open mind as we progress through the answer choices. We'll start by asking ourselves, "Does this weaken the claim that blame is too central to human nature to be removed from the criminal justice system?"

Answer choices

  1. A
    A new drug enables Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    (A) Does this weaken the claim that blame is too central to human nature to be removed from the criminal justice system?

    No. This has nothing to do with the concept of blame. For that reason, expert test-takers would table or eliminate this answer choice without giving it much thought.

    If we had to review the passage to eliminate (A), we'd see that neurological disorders were mentioned in passage A as an example of how behaviors can occur without free will (Passage A, P1, S3). The author referenced these disorders to show that many actions are not "free." This claim might weaken the author of passage A's claim that actions are not free. (However, we don't know that the patient this answer choice refers to has the same condition as the patients described in passage A.) But this doesn't address the author of passage B's belief that we can't remove blame from the criminal justice system. 

  2. B
    In patients with a Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited

    (B) Does this weaken the claim that blame is too central to human nature to be removed from the criminal justice system?

    Nope. Like (A), this answer choice doesn't address the concept of blame. For that reason, experienced test-takers would eliminate this option without reviewing the passage.

    If we had to review the passage to eliminate this answer choice, we'd see that it only addresses passage A's argument. Passage A argues against the existence of free will by showing that the brain is deeply interconnected (PA, P2, S2-3). This answer choice invites us to consider what would happen if part of the brain was no longer connected with the other parts. That might weaken passage A's contention that everyone lacks free will. But that wouldn't affect the argument in passage B, which takes the lack of free will as a given. Moreover, the brain injury would not change whether blame can be removed from the legal system.

  3. C
    Subjects in a psychological Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    (C) Does this weaken the claim that blame is too central to human nature to be removed from the criminal justice system?

    Like (A) and (B), this doesn't explicitly address the concept of blame. Again, decisive test-takers would use this as a reason to table or eliminate (C) without thinking about it too deeply.

    If we had to give (C) a closer look, we'd see that it wants us to believe that the subjects' "random" responses indicate that they might have some level of free will. After all, if these subjects' responses were genetically or environmentally determined, we might expect the same response to the same stimulus.

    While one may interpret this answer choice as evidence of free will, it has no bearing on the argument in passage B. Passage B begins with the condition "if people lack free will." The author concludes that even if people lack free will, the concept of blame is too deeply rooted in human nature to remove blame from the criminal justice system. Therefore, if people had free will (as one possible interpretation of this data might suggest), that would only strengthen the author's position. If people can freely choose their actions, then blaming people for their actions seems even more appropriate.

  4. D
    Some governments restrict the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    (D) Does this weaken the claim that blame is too central to human nature to be removed from the criminal justice system?

    Unlike (A) through (C), this answer choice at least addresses the concept of blame. Therefore, it warrants a closer look.

    However, upon review, we'll see that this doesn't weaken the author's claims about blame. Although this answer choice suggests that blame can be limited in "[s]ome governments," it does not suggest that blame can be entirely removed. If we knew that some governments were able to eradicate the concept of blame, this would weaken the author's stance that blame is central to human nature. But blame still exists for these governments. Moreover, we don't know how long those governments have limited the concept of blame and whether that limitation is sustainable. Put together, this answer choice is so weak that it wouldn't do much to affect the argument in passage B.

  5. E
    There are societies that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem

    (E) Does this weaken the claim that blame is too central to human nature to be removed from the criminal justice system?

    Finally, yes. The author claimed that blame is central to "the social life of human beings" (PB, P4, S2) and that blame is "deeply rooted in the human psyche" (PB, P2, S2). These are broad, universal claims. But the author didn't provide evidence that all human beings feel compelled to blame others. So, if it is true that some societies have no concept of blame, then the author's argument quickly falls apart. Blame would not be central to all human beings, which would suggest that blame could be removed from the criminal justice system.

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