Self-study
Sasha: Handwriting analysis should be banned in court as evidence of a person's character: handwriting analysts called as witnesses habitually exaggerate the reliability of their analyses.
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Summarize Argument
Gregory concludes that when a licensing board is established for handwriting experts, handwriting analysis by licensed practitioners will be a legitimate courtroom tool. This is based on his belief that current use of handwriting analysis as evidence is problemtic only because there isn’t a licensing board set up to deter irresponsible analysts from making exaggerated claims.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that once a licensing board is established, handwriting analysis will be reliable enough for the courtroom.
26.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ███████ █████ ████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██ █████████ █████████
a
Courts routinely use █████ █████ ████ ███████████ ████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ █ ████████ ██████████
The existence of alternatives to handwriting analysis don’t impact whether handwriting analysis will be legitimate once a licensing board is established.
b
Many people can ███████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███████████ ██ █████████ ████ ████ █ ██████ ███████ ████████████ █████ ████████ ████ ██ ██████ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ████ ███████
This suggests handwriting analysis might be difficult to do reliably for someone who’s untrained, but that doesn’t undermine Gregory’s position. To him, once a licensing board is established, professional standards will be set, which will lead to trained practitioners.
c
A licensing board █████ ██████████ ██████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ████ ███████████ ███████████ ████████ ███ ███████ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ ████ █████ ████████████
This doesn’t undermine the idea that the licensing board can raise professional standards and help handwriting analysis become legitimate. As long as the people who are licensed are qualified, it doesn’t matter that some qualified people are unlucky and don’t get a license.
d
The only handwriting ████████ ███ █████ ████ ███████████ ████████ ████████ ████████ ██ █ ████████ █████████ ███ ██████████████
If true, (D) means that there wouldn’t be any analysts that could be licensed by the board. If the only analysts who would testify that handwriting analysis is reliable are irresponsible, the licensing board won’t help handwriting analysis become legitimate.
e
The number of ███████████ ████████ ███ █████ ███████ ██ ████████████ █████████ ███ ██ █ █████████ █████ ██ ████ ██████
Even if there’s a small number of analysts who can be licensed, they could be highly trained and responsible, and therefore still help make handwriting analysis legitimate in the courtroom.