Passage - General Questions

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thanks!

[lathlee]

I hope Dave and other amazing powerscore members seriously consider list this passage to be the most difficult RC Passage ever (SO FAR) which is general agreement with most test takers' in the web.

[Brook Miscoski]

lathlee,

These dual passages could be considered challenging. The authors don't directly oppose eachother; Passage A suggests that morality, and Passage B that pragmatism, dictates that judges must be candid about their reasoning. There's not opposition to the idea of candor.

This makes Question 16 weird: the difference is that Passage A doesn't care about outcome because moral obligation is paramount, while Passage B does care about outcome because Passage B considers trust in the judiciary to be part of the outcome.

Then, question 17 challenges your understanding. You need to realize that it's passage A that cares about morality. If you read too quickly, you could think that Passage A rejected candor and that B was the more "moral" passage.

Then, question 18 challenges your understanding. You need to realize that Passage A chooses morality despite outcome, and Passage B fudges the issue of outcome by claiming that despite better results maybe that would diminish trust in the judiciary.

Etc. My feeling is that the passages themselves aren't particularly challenging, but the questions are structured to cause confusion and doubt unless you were careful in identifying the viewpoints.

[Lily123]

I didn't pick up on the fact that A believes candor is a moral obligation & judges should never lie.

I read lines 21-28 as saying: the problem with the first defense is that it fails to acknowledge [xyz], which is brings us to the second way of defending judicial sincerity.

In other words, I thought A was neutrally presenting 2 different ways of defending candor.
The way I read it is similar to if I said:
Some reject the notion that people shouldn't steal because of [abc]. There's a couple ways to defend the idea though: 1) If not stealing always produces the best outcomes, then that's enough to justify not doing it. This perspective doesn't encapsulate societal norms & moral principles so the other way to look at it is 2) morality.

I'm not saying stealing is always wrong (and in fact I don't believe it's always wrong). I'm simply saying there's a couple ways to defend the idea that people shouldn't steal.

Can someone please give me some pointers to correct how I'm looking at this?

[Brook Miscoski]

Lily,

I think it's fair to argue that Passage A is somewhat neutral as to whether either of the two justifications you mention are correct; however, Passage A does identify the moral (rather than pragmatic) approach as superior, especially in lines 24-26.

So you're not far off--but the passage does establish the moral justification by pointing out a problem with the pragmatic justification.

[Lily123]

Passage A does identify the moral (rather than pragmatic) approach as superior, especially in lines 24-26.

Lines 24-26 is what I was trying to get at when I said:

This perspective doesn't encapsulate societal norms & moral principles so the other way to look at it is 2) morality.

I'm not saying stealing is always wrong (and in fact I don't believe it's always wrong). I'm simply saying there's a couple ways to defend the idea that people shouldn't steal.

I know (now after reading forums) that A believes the moral approach is superior. What I was trying to say is: I'm having a hard time seeing it because I read it differently - I know I'm missing something but I don't know what it is. So what I was trying to ask is: Is it something in the language of lines 24-28 that tells us A thinks the moral approach is superior? For example, is it the word "merely"? If so, why?

[Adam Tyson]

For me, the preference for the moral approach is confirmed in these words from lines 26-28:

the duty to speak truthfully and openly is an independent constraint on our actions.

The author is saying that the moral duty is absolute, whereas the practical (prudential) approach is incomplete.

[Nicholas Noyes]

I hope Dave and other amazing powerscore members seriously consider list this passage to be the most difficult RC Passage ever (SO FAR) which is general agreement with most test takers' in the web.

I second that. This is passage completely destroyed me, even after re-reading multiple times I could not understand it whatsoever.

[annie63]

I totally agree with the others. I was able to answer the questions correctly using the viewstamp approach but this passage took up so much time I didn't get to the last passage. Any tips for working through this more quickly?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Annie!

This is definitely a tough passage! (And in fact it is on our list of "Killer RC Passages": https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/killer ... -all-time/). So the good news is that super tough passages like this are not all that common. And it's great that you were able to get the questions in this passage correct, even if it took you a lot of time.

With all passages, I try to take them one paragraph at a time. I read a paragraph and then pause briefly to think about what the main idea of that paragraph is, what I would come back to that paragraph to find, what are the important viewpoints, etc. It's especially helpful in passages like this that are kind of convoluted and can be tough to follow. I find that understanding the passages clearly after reading often makes it easier to go through the questions faster. This passage set has a lot of flowery language. So by breaking it down one paragraph at a time, I can simplify it and get the most important points out of it, without getting lost in the dense writing style.

But as with anything on the LSAT, increases in speed come mostly from training yourself to apply the same strategies and techniques over and over again until you can apply them quickly without thinking and immersing yourself in LSAT language until you become fluent in it. So keep working on these RC passages!

Best,
Kelsey