#20 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Purpose

[g_lawyered]

Hi P.S.
Unpopular answer choice- why is B incorrect? I chose B because I saw the 1st sentence started with "in addition, psych research..." which indicate it was continuing the previous concept of bartered testimony from paragraph 3. When completing this question, I didn't realize the difference that paragraph 4 discusses defendant's confession and isn't about cooperating witness testimony (which is what paragraph 3 discusses). After thoroughly reading explanations, I realize that now. However, I understood paragraph 3 & 4 to be comparing the source of testimony/confessions (paragraph 3: cooperating witness & paragraph 4: defendant) so I thought it matched A in: "make an unfavorable comparison to a study cited earlier in the passage". Unfavorable comparison meaning that the jurors don't treat cooperating witness & defendant testimony/ confession equally. What part of my analysis is incorrect or what am I misunderstanding here? What makes B incorrect?
Thanks in advance

[katehos]

Hi g_lawyered!

I'm glad the explanations were helpful for explaining paragraph 4's function in the passage! In general, the paragraph offers an additional problem with cooperating witness testimony through a comparison to confession testimony (lines 32-35).

Paragraph 3 and 4 are less about directly comparing the types of testimony (cooperating vs accused) and more about illustrating another issue with cooperating witness testimony through research conducted on confessions. At the end of paragraph 4, the author states the issue: if jurors have trouble realizing how incentives affect defendant's confessions, then jurors might also have trouble realizing how incentives affect cooperating witness testimony. With that in mind, we can better see why answer choice (B) is incorrect. The author isn't using the research to point out a flaw in the previously presented study -- they're using this to advance the same argument about how problematic cooperating witness testimony can be! Basically, they're not unfavorably comparing the previous study regarding infrequent prosecution of lying informants (lines 16-18) with the study about confessions, but rather, they're using the study to advance their central argument (which is answer choice (C))!

I hope this helps!
-Kate

[g_lawyered]

Hi Kate,
I see that I totally misunderstood the mark on paragraph 4.
Thanks for clarifying that up!