#16 - Specific Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (E).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice.

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[ltoulme]

Hi!

I got this question correct, but it was really more luck and process of elimination than actual understanding of the answer choice. I know that the third paragraph states that substantive arguments can be considered if a legal rule hasn't been clearly established... but I'm not really sure how (E) reflects this. Is that an accurate pre-phrase for this question?

Could someone help explain this to me?

Thanks very much as always!
Laura

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, ltoulme,

Great question. Questions that instruct you to make an inference about what "might" occur or what "likely" would conform to information contained in the passage often will not lead to exact predictions of what the credited response will say. Rather, you should focus on assessing the kind of evidence offered by the passage. Note the underlying principles or ways in which information connects. Once you have a close reading and an accurate assessment of what the passage states, you can now focus on what a correct answer will DO. In other words, the credited response will conform to the information contained in the passage, with which you are now equipped through your careful reading, and your analysis of the question stem itself, which will guide your understanding of how to apply this information.

In this case, your thinking leading to a prephrase might consist of something like:

"The question asks about how substantive considerations might be applied to the admissibility of a will. Substantive considerations are contrasted with formal rules. In the example in the passage, formal rules are shown to invalidate a will because of the failure to meet witnessing requirements even though the person executing the will meant for the will to be respected. Therefore, I need an answer choice that shows me a judge would reach a different decision using substantive considerations. The opposite would be that this will without witnesses is still accepted even though it doesn't meet the formal requirement. I need a substantive reason why a judge might accept it."

Now this is more or less a precise match for Answer Choice E. I know my explication was rather exhaustive and perhaps a little prolix, but I hope that it illustrates the manner in which you can approach an inference question such as this.

[ltoulme]

Got it - thanks! Thanks for all your help with my many questions!

[kuma-turtle]

Dear PowerScore,

Could you please give me some examples, if possible, of other questions or passages that ask this same kind of question?
This was very difficult for me and I would like to focus my practice on this kind of hard inference.

Thank you very much in advance.

[AthenaDalton]

Hi Kuma,

Reading comprehension passages frequently ask students to make inferences along the lines of, "which of the following statements would the author most likely agree with?" When tackling a question like this, you can look for guidelines or principles laid out in the text and apply them to the answer choices.

The technique used here is somewhat similar to the technique used in Logical Reasoning questions that ask "which of the following is most supported by the principle outlined above?"

You'll get the hang of this with practice! Good luck studying!

Athena

[luckiesailor]

Hi. Can someone elaborate a little more on the prephrase for the answer? I had a really hard time understanding this passage, which carried over into having a hard time prephrasing my answers. On question 16 I chose answer A but can't even talk myself through the answer choices (why right/why wrong).

Thank you so much for all your help!

[Ryan Twomey]

Hey LuckieSailor,

So in this passage, there was a lot of information given in the first paragraph, and I would have taken notes in that paragraph. I take notes on roughly 25 percent of passages, personally. The notes I took were that the United States favored a substantive system and that Britain favored a more formal system, and that the United states focused more on right vs wrong and Britain focused more on rules. Also, I did not write this down, but I made sure that I understood that substantive meant that the law took into account moral, political, and economic considerations. Writing down these notes in the first paragraph and the first sentence of the second paragraph allowed me to move faster throughout the remainder of the passage with confidence.

Now, as far as this question goes, it was nearly impossible, in my opinion, to pre-phrase the correct answer. My pre-phrase was thinking that we were going to be in more of a substantive system rather than a formal system, but this was not the case. But we wanted a correct answer choice where the judge would not apply the rule that a will needs a written witness, and answer choice E ends up being the only answer choice that is a contender.

Answer choice E is the only answer choice that would make it more likely that the judge is not enforcing the rule of a written witness being required for the will.

I would make sure you read the question stem two times in this question as it is a longer and more complicated question stem. You can even read it three times if need be. But this was a case where my pre-phrase did not match the correct answer, but you can still get the question right. It was not that my pre-phrase was wrong, there is just more than one possibility for a correct answer.

I hope this helps, and I wish you all of the luck in your studies.

Best,
Ryan

[cd1010]

I ended up getting this correctly, but I skipped it the first time I looked at the question, because I couldn't understand the question stem initially. It took me very long to pick E, though.

I think what I was struggling with was whether we are in the context of a legal system that favors substantive vs formal reasoning. Is the stem asking, "We're in England, but what would be a situation where a judge in England would still consider substantive reasoning as to the validity of the will despite there not being a signature?" If place doesn't matter, then why not? Or, is there something going on with my interpretation of the word "inferred" in the question?

One of the later questions asked about this part of the passage: "Once the legal rule–that a will is invalid for lack of proper witnessing–has been clearly established, and the legality of the rule is not in question, application of that rule precludes from consideration substantive arguments in favor of the will's validity or enforcement." --- and so this gave me something to think about when I returned to this question. I picked E because it was the closest to saying something about the law being interpreted (hence closer to the idea that the legality of the rule is being debated).

[Chandler H]

I ended up getting this correctly, but I skipped it the first time I looked at the question, because I couldn't understand the question stem initially. It took me very long to pick E, though.

I think what I was struggling with was whether we are in the context of a legal system that favors substantive vs formal reasoning. Is the stem asking, "We're in England, but what would be a situation where a judge in England would still consider substantive reasoning as to the validity of the will despite there not being a signature?" If place doesn't matter, then why not? Or, is there something going on with my interpretation of the word "inferred" in the question?

One of the later questions asked about this part of the passage: "Once the legal rule–that a will is invalid for lack of proper witnessing–has been clearly established, and the legality of the rule is not in question, application of that rule precludes from consideration substantive arguments in favor of the will's validity or enforcement." --- and so this gave me something to think about when I returned to this question. I picked E because it was the closest to saying something about the law being interpreted (hence closer to the idea that the legality of the rule is being debated).

Hi cd1010,

First of all, good job getting this question correct even though it initially confused you!

Regarding your question about the context of the legal system—place actually doesn't really matter. Like you identified, substantive and formal reasoning are present in both legal systems; what differs is how common each one is. However, the third paragraph tells us that formal reasons frequently prevent substantive reasons from coming into play. Therefore, we are looking for the answer choice that would prevent that formal reason from precluding the substantive reason. Does this make sense?