LSAT 115 – Section 4 – Question 03

LSAT 115 - Section 4 - Question 03

December 2002

You need a full course to see this video. Enroll now and get started in less than a minute.

Ask a tutor

Target time: 0:43

This is question data from the 7Sage LSAT Scorer. You can score your LSATs, track your results, and analyze your performance with pretty charts and vital statistics - all with a Free Account ← sign up in less than 10 seconds

Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT115 S4 Q03
+LR
Method of reasoning or descriptive +Method
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Value Judgment +ValJudg
Fact v. Belief v. Knowledge +FvBvK
A
4%
156
B
2%
147
C
12%
158
D
3%
155
E
80%
163
128
142
156
 +Medium 146.173 +SubsectionMedium

Tom: Critics of recent high court decisions claim that judges’ willingness to abide by earlier decisions is necessary to avoid legal chaos. Since high courts of the past often repudiated legal precedents and no harm to the legal system ensued, these critics’ objections must be politically motivated and ought to be ignored.

Mary: High courts have repudiated precedents in the past, but they were careful to do so only when the previous rulings were old and had clearly become outdated. The recently overturned rulings were themselves recent. Overturning any recent legal ruling diminishes the law, which comes to be viewed as unstable and capricious.

Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
Mary disagrees with Tom’s conclusion that critic’s objections to recent high court decisions ought to be ignored. As evidence, Mary points out that high courts in the past repudiated precedent when those previous rulings were outdated. However, the recently overturned rulings were themselves recent. Overturning recent rulings diminishes the law and is perceived as unstable and capricious.

Describe Method of Reasoning
Mary counters the position held by Tom. She does this by making a crucial distinction between situations that Tom presents as analogous. It may be true that past high court repudiations have caused no harm to the legal system, but repudiations of recent rulings may cause harm to the legal system. Tom’s argument does not account for this distinction.

A
She questions Tom’s claim about the effects of reversals by high courts of the past.
Mary does not question tom’s claim about what occurred in the past. In fact, she concedes that in the past high courts would repudiate decisions because they were old and clearly outdated.
B
She agrees to Tom’s evaluation of certain critics’ motives, but introduces evidence to show that it is usually difficult to discern such motives in practice.
Mary does not agree to Tom’s evaluation regarding the critics’ motives. At best she ignores Tom’s evaluation by not addressing it explicitly.
C
She defends a practice against Tom’s criticisms by citing evidence to show that it has usually been resorted to only after due deliberation.
Tom does not criticize the practice of high courts repudiating past decisions. In fact, Tom defends this practice against some critics’ objections.
D
She points out that Tom’s conclusion rests on an assumption that is contradicted by the evidence Tom presents.
The assumption underlying Tom’s conclusion is the high court’s recent repudiation is similar to past high courts repudiating decisions. Mary presents evidence to counter this assumption by introducing a distinction between the present and the past.
E
She introduces a distinction between two kinds of situations in which precedents are overturned, in order to argue for a difference that Tom fails to take into account.
The distinction Mary introduces is the distinction between the kinds of decisions the high court overruled in the past and the decisions the high court recently repudiated.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 115 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

Get full LSAT course

Leave a Reply