PrepTest 156

[lcid:3722] Prep Test 156 LSAT — Reading Comp — S3 Reading comp

Passage

  Two competing demands we make of the law create a troubling conflict that contributes to the law's frequent failure to Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage Summary

Topic: Legal


Paragraph 1

  • Paragraph note
    • Author on the first of two conflicting demands (the law as "formalist": law is rules-based, predictable, objective)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author’s attitude
    • Cause-and-effect relationship, according to the author:
      • Two conflicting demands we place on the law cause the law to fail to deliver what we want it to (first sentence)
    • List of two competing demands on law, according to the author:
      • First item: Law should be "formalist" — rational, consistent, understandable, reliable, and blind to socioeconomic differences (second through last sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "troubling conflict" (first sentence); "frequent failure" (first sentence); "formalist system" (second sentence); "rational and rule-based" (second sentence); "deliver us from arbitrariness, irrationality, and caprice in a coherent, reasoned way" (second sentence); "should be ... capable of understanding and generally able to depend on" (third sentence); "imperative" (last sentence); "rational, consistently applied, and blind to the differing social and economic situations" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

  • Paragraph note
    • Author on the second of two conflicting demands ("substantive": law adapts to particular contexts to promote fairness/justice)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author’s attitude
    • List of two competing demands on law, according to the author (continued from the previous paragraph):
      • Second item: Law shouldn't be an example of "extreme formalism"; instead, it should adapt to particular contexts of individual cases and derive from subjective experience to promote fairness and justice (first through last sentences)
    • Comparison, according to the author:
      • "[M]erely procedural" law is contrasted with substantive (fair and equitable) law (second sentence)
    • Example of our demand that law must adapt to particular cases, according to the author:
      • The strict application of unchangeable rules should not decide cases (fifth sentence)
    • Author's attitude: "sensitive to the particular contexts" (first sentence); "of little use" (second sentence); "cannot deliver" (second sentence); "need not" (third sentence); "must" (fourth sentence); "can accept as legitimate and justifiable according to some common understanding of fairness and justice" (fourth sentence); "should not ... based strictly on the application of unalterable rules" (fifth sentence); "extreme formalism" (sixth sentence); "speaks little to the substance of justice" (sixth sentence); "imperative" (last sentence); "derive from and relate to subjective experience" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

  • Paragraph note
    • Author's reconciliation (we can't reconcile both until there is true equality, so we should abandon formalism)
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author’s attitude
    • Author's view:
      • Trying to reconcile formalism and substantive justice in a society that lacks social equality is bound to fail or even promote injustice (first through third sentences)
      • Therefore, we should abandon formalism so the law can adapt to social realities (fourth through last sentences)
    • Author's attitude: "seems" (first sentence); "irreconcilable tension" (first sentence); "bound to fail" (second sentence); "cannot" (second sentence); "may very well" (third sentence); "required" (fourth sentence); "formalism should be abandoned" (fourth sentence); "misguided project" (last sentence)

Main Point: The law cannot promote both formalist and substantive justice in an unequal world, so we should abandon our expectations that the law be formalist.

Meta-Structure?

Paradox/Resolution: This passage uses one of the rarer Meta-Structures on the LSAT — the Paradox/Resolution Meta-Structure*. In such a passage, the author will describe a situation or belief that is paradoxical, discrepant, or counterintuitive. In this passage, the author uses the first two paragraphs to describe the conflicting, paradoxical demands we place on the law. We expect the law to be both "formalist" (rules-based, predictable, objective) and "substantive" (adaptable, equitable, subjective). The author ultimately resolves this paradox in the last paragraph. The author claims that trying to reconcile formalism and substantive justice in a society that lacks true equality is bound to fail or even promote injustice. So, the author concludes that we should no longer demand that the law promotes "formalism" so we can allow the law to adapt to social realities.

In a Paradox/Resolution passage, the main point is typically the author's resolution. To identify the main point, we can look for the part of the passage where the author summarizes their resolution. The author uses the passage's last two sentences to summarize their resolution, so we can use those to answer any question that requires us to know the main point. Or, we can use our summary of that resolution, as we did for our anticipated main point: "The law cannot promote both formalist and substantive justice in an unequal world, so we should abandon our expectations that the law be formalist."

*That said, a few other Meta-Structures could apply to this passage. One can reasonably claim this is a Problem/Solution passage (problem: the conflicting demands of formalist and substantive justice; solution: abandon formalism). One could also claim that this is a Resolving a Debate passage (even if the debate in such a passage will typically be two arguments offered by two different groups, not two demands we place on the same thing). If you classified this passage as either, you'd still develop a helpful understanding of the passage's main point and organization.

List: As is often the case with a Paradox/Resolution passage, the two sides of the paradox are presented as two items on a list. So, this list is the passage's most prominent minor Meta-Structure. The author describes the two items on the list, the formalist and substantive demands we place on the law, in the first and second paragraphs. We should refer to our notes on those paragraphs (and the paragraphs themselves, if necessary) to answer the inevitable questions about those two items.

Last Thoughts?

This is the first passage in the section, so it will probably be the easiest passage of the four. It also has only five questions — the fewest a Reading Comp passage will have. If you are attempting to finish all four passages, it's imperative (to use one of this passage's author's favorite words) that you only dedicate six or seven minutes to this passage. We don't recommend reading the passage faster or abandoning any tasks that help you answer the questions accurately. Instead, try to speed up as you answer the questions. Make anticipations, avoid re-reading the passage as much as possible, and choose the first answer that matches your anticipation.

Question prompt

Which one of the Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: B

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Strategy Overview

Review the author's argument on formalism, determine weaknesses in that claim to anticipate how to weaken it, and select the answer choice that makes the claim 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. In this case, the author's argument on formalism is causal. The author says that we "should" abandon formalism so we can accomplish a goal — allowing the law to "adapt to social reality" (P3, S4). When an author claims that we should do X to accomplish Y, the author assumes that X must cause Y. So, the author must assume abandoning formalist expectations of the law will cause the law to more readily adapt to social realities. The most common way to weaken a causal claim on the LSAT is by undermining the correlation. In this case, the correct answer might show other instances in which a legal system abandoned formalism somehow, but the law didn't get better at adapting to social realities or promoting substantive justice. This technique is often called "cause without the effect." Alternatively, the correct answer could show an effect produced without the supposed cause preceding it. In this case, that might involve showing that the law usually gets very good at adapting to social realities or promoting substantive justice without abandoning formalism. This technique is often called "effect without the cause." Either would undermine the correlation linking the removal of the law's formalist elements to the promotion of substantive justice. If this way of conceptualizing the flaw doesn't come naturally to you, there's another way to think of "should" claims on the LSAT. When someone makes a "should" claim, they assume the benefits of pursuing that claim outweigh the drawbacks. Typically, the person making the "should" claim doesn't consider all the drawbacks when making the argument. So, in this case, an answer choice that points out a major drawback of abandoning formalism in the law — especially as it relates to adapting to social realities or promoting substantive justice — will weaken the author's argument. That said, many things could feasibly weaken the author's argument on formalism, so we should keep an open mind as we progress through the answer choices. We'll start by asking ourselves, "Does this weaken the belief that abandoning formalism will make the law better at adapting to social realities or promoting substantive justice?"

Answer choices

  1. A
    The vast majority of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited

    Does this weaken the belief that abandoning formalism will make the law better at adapting to social realities or promoting substantive justice?

    Nope. This is irrelevant to the author's argument that abandoning formalism will promote substantive justice. Just because most people don't see a practical way of remedying the imperfections of "merely procedural justice" (formalism, P2, S2) doesn't mean these imperfections can't be remedied. Perhaps most people are unaware that we can remove the formalist aspirations of the law! Since this answer choice addresses people's perceptions rather than actual consequences, we can cross it off.

  2. B
    Nonformalist legal systems have Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem

    Does this weaken the belief that abandoning formalism will make the law better at adapting to social realities or promoting substantive justice?

    Yes! As we predicted, this weakens the author's cause-and-effect argument about formalism by providing the cause without the effect. The author believes that abandoning formalism will cause the law to promote substantive justice. However, this shows that removing formalism (to create "[n]onformalist legal systems") does not lead to the supposed effect — it promotes "substantive justice even less" than formalist legal systems. This undermines the author's cause-and-effect system by showing that the cause rarely, if ever, leads to the effect. (Alternatively, if you didn't consider the author's argument a causation flaw, this answer choice shows a major downside of abandoning formalism, weakening the author's insistence that we "should" abandon formalism.)

    Since this answer choice weakens the argument in a manner that matches our anticipation, we can justifiably select (B) and advance to the following question.

  3. C
    Any type of collective Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited

    Does this weaken the belief that abandoning formalism will make the law better at adapting to social realities or promoting substantive justice?

    No. This answer choice doesn't address what happens when we abandon formalism. This answer choice only says that formalism tends to become "less effective" when those rules "become dated and less relevant." However, we don't know that the legal system's formal rules are becoming "dated" or "less relevant." That wasn't among the author's complaints about the legal system. Moreover, we don't know whether abandoning these rules will promote substantive justice by making the law more adaptive and equitable. Since this answer choice doesn't address the specific concerns brought up by the author's argument on formalism, we can eliminate it.

  4. D
    Societies in which there Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited

    Does this weaken the belief that abandoning formalism will make the law better at adapting to social realities or promoting substantive justice?

    Negative. This answer choice doesn't address the author's argument. If necessary, a quick glance at our notes or main point will remind us that the author's argument is predicated on social inequality. The author thinks we have to abandon formalism because formalism can perpetuate injustice in a society without reasonable levels of equality (P3, S3). So, what happens in a society with "little social inequality" is irrelevant to the author's argument about formalism. We can cross off (D).

  5. E
    A formalist approach to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited

    Does this weaken the belief that abandoning formalism will make the law better at adapting to social realities or promoting substantive justice?

    Nope. First, this answer choice uses the weak, wishy-washy language ("sometimes") that we don't like on Weaken questions. Such answer choices rarely provide enough information to meaningfully affect the argument. But even if this answer choice used bolder language, it would still be wrong. Knowing that the formalist approach was too broad or abstract to handle particular cases would only strengthen the author's argument. This answer choice would describe another downside of formalism, strengthening the author's belief that we should abandon formalism in the law.

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