#9 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Purpose/Function

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=10851)

The correct answer choice is (A)

This choice refers specifically to the second paragraph, requiring you to find an answer choice that best expresses its purpose. Once again, understanding passage Structure is key. As previously discussed, the second paragraph explains why the issue raised in the first paragraph is problematic. This prephrase is sufficiently broad to point you in the right direction.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. The author introduces the current approach to judicial recusals in the first paragraph, and explains why this approach is objectionable in the second paragraph.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice is incorrect, because the author does not present her solution until the third paragraph. Furthermore, the proposed solution is never actually rejected, though the author does present and respond to a potential objection in the last paragraph.

Answer choice (C): Although the second paragraph does elaborate on the problems discussed in the first paragraph, no concrete examples are provided.

Answer choice (D): The author does not use the second paragraph to explore the history leading up to the current rules of recusal, but rather to discuss why the current rules should be improved.

Answer choice (E): The author does not state a thesis that is then defended for the rest of the passage. Rather, as discussed in the Structure analysis above, the author begins by introducing the subject of recusal and disqualification, points out weaknesses with the current rules in the second paragraph, then suggests a better system in the third paragraph, and finally responds to a potential objection in the last paragraph.

[TheKingLives]

Hi PowerScore Staff,

1) How does the LSAT define "thesis"? The author's argument takes up much of second paragraph and it does seem to be defended throughout the rest of the passage with supporting arguments and a response to an objection.

I disliked A because the second paragraph spends a little bit explaining why the author dislikes the aforementioned approach, but then goes into the author's argument which is developed throughout the passage.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi TheKingLives,

The LSAT is using "thesis" here in an ordinary sense, meaning a "claim to be defended or proved" in the passage.

Try to be as specific as possible, as you deal with the entirety of answer choice E. What is the claim you're seeing as "defended" in the rest of the passage? Is it the statement that, "It is a mistake for rules governing judicial ethics to focus on the appearance of justice?" If so, then the "rest of the passage" has to defend (provide evidence and arguments for) that statement. The problem with seeing the "rest of the passage" that way is that there is another rhetorical component to the rest of the passage: to propose a new method of assuring impartiality, and to defend that method from imagined objections. That extra rhetorical component doesn't precisely fit the description of "defending the claim that it is a mistake to focus on the appearance of justice," because much of the rest of the passage has that positive thing (the new procedure) to assert, not just the negative task of making continued attacks on the procedure of focusing on appearance of justice.

With answer choice A, I don't think I'm seeing quite as big a "turn" in the second part of paragraph 2 as you're seeing. The rules that are asserted to be vague (at the beginning of paragraph 2) are rules that focus on "appearance of impropriety" (going back to paragraph 1). The author spends the rest of paragraph 2 talking about the appearance of justice (e.g., lines 17 and 22), in each case raising weaknesses or deficiencies of a system that focuses on such appearance.

Hopefully this helps!

Jeremy