#6 - Global Reference, Cannot Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

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

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

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

[Emilymarie]

Hi! Can you provide an explanation of why C is correct? I thought E was correct because the employee had "reasonable expectations" that their communications would not be monitored (reasonable because they were explicitly told they wouldn't be monitored) and then their expectations were not met when the employer actually did monitor the messages and thus fired them for what they sent. Is this not the correct answer because the last paragraph tells us this "reasonable expectations" reasoning is what courts did in the PAST, not necessarily the way they would be interpreted now? Is C correct because it goes against the fact stated in paragraph 2 that destruction of paper versions are prohibited?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Emily,

This is a bit of a complex question, because it asks us which one of the following is the least likely to occur. We can think about it like a cannot be true question. Which of the answer choices is inconsistent with the information presented in the passage?

Let's compare answer choices (C) and (E). For answer choice (C), it says that the court upholds the government's right to destroy both paper and electronic documents. As you note, this is inconsistent with the second paragraph. The government has a responsibility to keep records. It's unlikely that the court suddenly would determine that obligation does not exist. The question presented in the passage was given that the government already must keep paper records, must they also keep electronic copies of that same information? There was an assumption baked into that paragraph that the government would be keeping either the electronic or the paper version, and not getting rid of both. So answer choice (C) is inconsistent with the information in that second paragraph, and thus the answer choice that is least likely to occur.

Answer choice (E) on the other hand is a bit different. On the first read, it might look like the situation in the third paragraph of the passage. However, there are key differences. First, in the passage, the employees were not given any reason to expect their messages were private. In answer choice (E), the employee had been told that the email would not be monitored. If you are told something isn't monitored, it could confer a reasonable expectation of privacy. Therefore, it's not unexpected or unlikely that the court would rule in favor of the employee in that case. Answer choice (E) is consistent with the last two paragraphs of the passage.

Hope that helps!

[treyrg]

Hi!

I'm trying to better understand exactly how to parse the language in RC sections, and I think this question does a good job of showing me where I go wrong with that. I chose (E), and I believe that the reason that this is wrong is because the passage does not give much of an indication as to why this scenario would not occur. I don't think the passage absolutely tells me that it wouldn't occur, but I think that there is not enough information to confidently say that it would not. Therefore, it isn't an answer to the question of "which of these cannot be true" because I'm not sure. The last paragraph tells us the following:

if interoffice communications can be considered private, then the employees must have a "reasonable expectation" that the communication will be private.

(E) confirms the necessary assumption, but that is not enough to tell us anything about whether the conditional has been met. So, while I see that (E) is not inconsistent with the passage, I can't say that it is consistent with the passage - it just doesn't go against it. Does that sound right?

(C) is where my larger problem lies. In the second paragraph, we're told that "Government officials, opponents maintain, are civil servants; the public should thus have the right to review any documents created during the conducting of government business." The question only asks about the passage, not the author's opinion on the passage, and I think that this might be where I'm getting confused. I read the quote from above as if the sentence following the semicolon was a continuation of the opponents' claim, so I'm not sure what the author herself thinks of this claim. That said, the question isn't asking about the author - just the passage.

So, I guess my question is about how I'm supposed to answer these sorts of question that reference the passage as a whole. (C) seems correct if I include the opponents' claim, but I had excluded it because it wasn't a part of the author's opinion. I'm now wondering if, to answer these questions correctly, I am to include any part of the passage when the whole passage is referenced like it is here.

I hope this makes sense!

[Robert Carroll]

treyrg,

I think your analysis of answer choice (E) is correct. If the employer gave an employee the reasonable expectation their email would be private, it's possible, even according to the passage, that the employer now can't "spy" on their employee's email. So this seems like a situation where it's quite possible the court would rule in favor of the employee.

For answer choice (C), you need to look at the middle of the second paragraph. Destroying email records is defended by people who claim that there's no harm done because those records already exist in paper versions. If that's the defense of destroying email, then destroying the email AND paper records would completely undermine the defense. It therefore seems likely the courts would not allow that.

I don't think the author's viewpoint is very relevant in this case, because the question is asking about likelihood based on what the passage is saying, and the author's viewpoint doesn't determine what's likely or unlikely. What courts are likely and unlikely to do is based on what principles guide them, which may not be the same as the author's viewpoint. In a slightly different passage, where the author may have a very different viewpoint from people mentioned, there might even be a contrast between what the author considers desirable and what would be considered likely based on the actions of others. So I think the author's viewpoint in this particular passage is just beside the point - what's likely to happen based on current jurisprudence about email and other privacy has little to do with what the author wants to happen. So just go with the descriptions of how things DO happen, and don't get caught up in thinking about what the author WANTS to happen.

Robert Carroll