#21 - Global Reference, Must Be True, Principle

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[mjb514]

I do not understand this question or the answer. Can you please entirely explain it.

[Adam Tyson]

I'll do my best, mjb514!

First, the question is asking for a principle, which you can understand to mean a rule or a guideline, that "underlies the arguments" in passage A and also in passage B. In other words, what rule or guideline did both authors follow?

Clearly the passages are in some sense in opposition. Passage A supports research done independently by trial judges, while Passage B opposes any such research being done by appellate judges. However, these two positions are not actually in conflict with each other, because they are each talking about different levels of the court system - trial vs. appeal. We are being asked here to find something that the passages had in common, some rule or guideline that they both followed, even though there were talking about somewhat different topics.

Answer C is a rule that both of our authors followed. The author of Passage A appears to believe that any independent research done by a trial judge should supplement, rather than replace, the evidence presented and discussed during the trial. That is the point of the entire final paragraph of Passage A. The author of Passage B clearly doesn't want research to supersede the evidence presented at trial, because he thinks appellate judges shouldn't do any such research. He also has a very high opinion of the trial process of cross-examination, calling it "the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth."

So, both authors' arguments followed the rule laid out in answer C, that independent research should not supersede (replace, take precedence over, or outweigh) evidence presented in a trial.

I hope that helps make sense of things for you! Let us know if you need further elaboration, we're always here to help.

[govinkaggal1234]

Hi! So I picked A for 21 because I felt that A was supported by essentially the entirety of passage A and and it was supported by the author of Passage B by lines 55-57. I understand why it’s C but how is it not A?

[Adam Tyson]

The problem with answer A, govinkaggal1234, is that the author of Passage B never weighs on on whether trial judges should do any independent research. The lines you referenced give the author's opinion that appellate judges should not do such research, but it doesn't tell us how he feels about such research at the trial level. Maybe he's cool with it, but maybe he thinks it's also a terrible idea? We don't want to assume anything about how this author feels about a topic about which he said nothing! He did start off the passage by saying "regardless of what trial judges do", but even that is not an endorsement of trial judges doing their own research. It's sort of like when my mom used to say "I don't care what Johnny next door did! If he jumped off a bridge, would you?" She wasn't endorsing Johnny's behavior, just saying I shouldn't model mine after his.

Be careful about making assumptions not based on the text! Treat RC passages like giant Must Be True questions, and base your answers only on what we were given. Good luck, and keep up the good work!

[ser219]

Is choice B wrong because passage B does not care if trial judges use independent research and therefore he or she does not think that Judges should conduct independent research at trial?

[James Finch]

Hi Ser,

Yes, (B) is only concerned with trial courts, while Passage B is concerned only with arguing against appellate courts doing independent research. So (B) doesn't apply to passage B at all, and definitely doesn't underlie the argument in it.

Hope this clears things up!

[PhillBugajski]

Hi,

I'm still confused at to why C is correct, and I believe that it's because I may have mis-read. In Passage A, I assumed that the following passage:

The two parties prescreen and compensate expert witnesses, which virtually ensures conflicting and partisan testimony. At the same time, scientific facts are general truths not confined to the immediate cases. Because scientific admissibility decisions can exert considerable influence over future cases, erroneous decisions detract from the legitimacy of the system. Independent research could help judges avoid such errors.

Would indicate that the evidence provided by the parties would be partisan, and might be inaccurate as a result (choosing their own narrative). When the passage goes on to say that Independent research can help judges avoid erroneous decisions, it sounds like to me that the Judge would use scientific research to overrule the evidence presented by the parties in trial.

Can you explain why this is incorrect?

I understand now why A is incorrect, but am still stuck.

Thanks,
Phill

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Phill,

The problem with using that portion of passage A as a contradiction of answer choice C is that the portion you quoted is talking about decisions regarding admissibility of the evidence (i.e., whether the judge will let that evidence become part of the trial), rather than evidence "presented . . . in a trial," which is what answer choice C is talking about. You can tell that from this phrase, "because scientific admissibility decisions can exert considerable influence . . ." If the judge decides (from independent research) that something isn't admissible, that evidence will not be presented in the trial. Since such evidence would never be "presented," the judge's research would not be superseding what was presented.

The following excerpt does a nice job of showing what Adam explained above, that one of the main points of Passage A is to suggest independent research can be a supplement, but never a "trump card," for the evidence that was presented in the trial court: "Independent research supplements, rather than replaces, the parties’ presentation of the evidence, so the parties always frame the debate." That language of "supplementing" is consistent with the idea of the research "not superseding" the evidence presented.

I hope this helps!

[Tajadas]

I took issue with C because the answer doesn't distinguish between trial and appellate judges. Passage B clearly agrees that "Independent research by judges should not supersede evidence presented by the opposing parties in a trial" if they're appellate judges, but how do we know the author also thinks the same for trial judges?