In recent years, a growing belief that the way society decides what to treat as true is controlled through largely unrecognized discursive practices has led legal reformers to examine the complex interconnections between narrative and law. ██ ████ █████ ████████ █████ █████████ ███ █████ ██ █████████ ███████ █████ ███████ ███████ ██████ █████████ █████ ███████ ██████ ███ ██████ ████ ████████ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ███ ██████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███
Context ·How do we decide what is true or false?
Legal systems use competing narratives about events; judges and juries assign "truth"
Implications of solution ·Disruption of status quo, less advantage bestowed by legal training, emphasis on empathy
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Problem-analysis
11.
Which one of the following ████ █████████ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ ████████ ██ ██ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ██████████
Question Type
Meaning in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Structure
We’re told that objectivist legal discourse disallows emotion/experience by focusing on “cognition” in its narrowest sense. Since objectivist legal discourse disallows emotion/experience, the meaning of “cognition” in context must refer to something besides emotion/experience. We’re also told that the legal reformers want to replace “abstract discourse with powerful personal stories.” This suggests “cognition” involves something abstract. So we can look for an answer that conveys the idea of something abstract, and not emotion/experience.
a
logical thinking uninfluenced ██ ███████
This is the best answer. “Uninfluenced by passion” is supported by the fact that the cognition isn’t based on emotion/experience. “Logical thinking” has some support from the fact the cognition involves abstract discourse and that objectivism involves neutrality. You won’t find the words “logical” or “logic,” in the passage, but there’s no other answer that’s better supported.
79%
b
the interpretation of ██████ ████
We have no reason to think “cognition” in context has anything to do with visual cues. The author doesn’t suggest that a difference between objectivist legal discourse and what the legal scholars propose relates to sight, vision, or how things visually appear.
3%
c
human thought that ███████████ ███ ███████ ███ ██████████
Anti-supported. Objectivist legal discourse disallows emotion/experience...so how could the “cognition” that objectivist legal discourse focuses on encompass (which means include) emotion and experience? (It can’t.)
This doesn’t fit, because the author mentions that both judges and juries must decide which stories are true or false. We have no reason to think objectivist legal discourse would focus on the reasoning used by judges to arrive at their judgments when the author also brought up juries’ judgments as part of the objectivist legal procedure.
Anti-supported. Objectivist legal discourse disallows emotion/experience. The legal scholars in P4 are the ones who want to begin including stories based on emotion/experience.
2%
Difficulty
79% of people who answer get this correct
This is a moderately difficult question.
It is similar in difficulty to other questions in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%130
146
75%162
Analysis
Meaning in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Meaning in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Stems that ask us to interpret the meaning of a word, phrase, or idea given the context in which it appears.
An umbrella tag marking questions that test our understanding of the passage's overall structure (e.g. Main point, Purpose of paragraph, Meaning in context, Describe organization).
Critique or debate passages contain multiple points of view on a particular subject. Sometimes the author takes sides and participates in the critique or debate, other times the author merely reports the debate.
Passages that present a particular problem and then discuss the implications of that problem. They also often explore one or more solutions to that problem (although they don’t have to).