Self-study
P1
In England the burden of history weighs heavily on common law, that unwritten code of time-honored laws derived largely from English judicial custom and precedent. ███
Intro to Topic ·
English common law
Unwritten body of law that comes from a long history of jurisprudence.
Common law ·
Rooted in history
Students have to study its history; cannot be understood without understanding cultural and legal history.
P2
Problematic View ·
Academics don't view common law as evolving and rooted in history
Reasons ·
theoretical and political
Theoretical Reason ·
The law is a unified coherent system
At any given moment, the law can be understood as a logical whole, a coherent system. The past matters only in that it represents past states of the system.
Political Reason ·
Believing that the law is logical is required to believe that the law is fair
Even though in truth much jurisprudence is not logical. But that would be too politically demoralizing.
P3
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Alternative View ·
Common law should be studied as a continually developing tradition
Not as a set of rules.
Analogy ·
Common law is like literary text
To study common law historically means to pay attention to fiction, perception, and memory. Tradition also means rewriting and adapting to contemporary circumstances.
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Problem-analysis
14.
The primary purpose of the ███████ ██ ██
a
explain a paradoxical █████████ ███ ███████ █ ███ ████ ██ ███ █████████
This is the best answer. The paradoxical situation is the fact that the history of common law is critical to understanding it, but modern study of jurisprudence tends to ignore the historical roots of common law. The new view of the situation is Goodrich’s view. No other answer states something that occurs in the passage, so you have to pick this one, once you can see what “paradoxical situation” might refer to.
b
supply a chronological ███████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ██ ████
The author doesn’t summarize the history of common law or some other idea. We don't get a recounting of the historical development of something.
c
trace the ideas ██ ██ ███████████ ████████ ███ ████████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ████
Goodrich is the only theorist mentioned. We don’t get a discussion of the origin of his ideas, and the author doesn’t evaluate his current work. She simply describes one of his views. She probably agrees with his view, but she doesn’t make any comments about her opinion of his view, so we can’t characterize what the author does as “evaluating.”
d
contrast the legal ████████ ██ ████ ████ ████ █████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ███ █████ ████████ ██████ ██ ███████
The author doesn’t compare past legal theories with modern legal theories. The author discusses the importance of the historical roots of law and then complains about the modern studies of jurisprudence. At no point does the author comment on a past legal theory. There’s a difference between the historical roots of law and a past legal theory.
e
advocate a traditional ██████ ██ ███████ █████ ███████████ █ ███ █████
The author doesn’t advocate anything traditional. If anything, she wants the traditional way law is studied to change. The author may want law to study historical traditions, but that’s different from advocating a traditional school of thought.