Critique ·Author thinks "outcomes analysis" is misguided
I take it that "outcomes analysis" is Zirkel's social science technique. I predict that the next paragraph will tell us why the author thinks that's misguided.
Ah, this makes sense. The cases are too different: quality of evidence; attitude of judge; types of cases; etc. For "outcome analysis" to be predictively useful, a major assumption is that the cases are relevantly similar.
Researcher reads opinions to figure out which variables the judge thought was important in deciding the case. It then uses statistical methods to figure out the causal impact of those variables.
Researcher reads transcripts to figure out which variables and kinds of evidence contributed to the verdict. Presumably the researchers also use statistical tools to figure out causal impact.
Benefit ·These methods can help parties assess outcome of a potential case
Passage Style
Critique or debate
Problem-analysis
16.
Which one of the following ██████████ █████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ███ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ████████
Question Type
Implied
The answer will likely be supported by the author’s statements about Zirkel and Schoenfled in P1.
a
They were the █████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███████ █████ ██ █████████ █████ ██████
We don’t know that they were the “first.”
9%
b
They confined their ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ██████████
Although we know they supported “outcomes analysis,” we have no basis to believe they “confined” their studies to this technique. They might have used some other techniques, too.
18%
c
They saw no █████ ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ██ ███████████ █████ █████████
“No value” is too extreme. Although we know they criticized traditional legal research, this doesn’t imply they say zero value in it. They might have seen some value, but thought overall traditional research isn’t very useful.
5%
d
They rejected policy █████████ ██ █████ ███ ███████ ██ ██████
Not supported, because we don’t know that they were aware of policy capturing. We have no evidence of their opinion toward policy capturing.
2%
e
They believed that ███ ███████████ █████████ ██ ████████ ████████ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████████
Supported, because they are enthusiastic about “outcomes analysis.” If they criticize traditional legal research for focusing on cases that don’t affect real people, but favor “outcomes analysis,” this suggests they believe “outcomes analysis” is relevant to real people bringing lawsuits.
65%
Answer five questions and we'll estimate your score.
This is a moderately difficult question.
It is similar in difficulty to other questions in this passage.
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
145
Analysis
Implied
Implied
Stems asking us to infer an idea implied by the claims in the passage (as opposed to identifying an idea that appears explicitly). Similar to most strongly supported questions in LR.
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).
