PrepTest 101 - Section 1 - Passage 3 - Question 17

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In recent years, scholars have begun to use social science tools to analyze court opinions. ███

Intro to Topic · Social science tools to analyze court opinions

Not sure what this means, but that's fine, will keep reading.

Critique · Of traditional legal research

Traditional legal research has problems. Author agrees with this. This is why scholars are using social science techniques.

Example of New Method · Zirkel

Use social science techniques to analyze gender discrimination in employment.

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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.

Questionable Assumption · Simply counting success will be helpful

So... simply counting the number of successful v. unsuccessful plaintiffs will not be helpful to prospective plaintiffs. Why?

Reason 1 · Prospective plaintiffs don't find this evidence persuasive

Okay...

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Reason 2 · Details of the cases are too different

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.

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Altnerative Methods · More useful

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Method 1 · Reading opinions / policy capturing

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.

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Method 2 · Reading transcripts

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.

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Benefit · These methods can help parties assess outcome of a potential case

Passage Style

Critique or debate

Problem-analysis

17.

The author's characterization of traditional █████ ████████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ██ ████████ ██

Question Type

Purpose of paragraph

Structure

The author brings up traditional legal research to give context for the rest of the passage. The rest of the passage focuses on techniques that use social science tools to analyze court opinions. These are different from traditional legal research, which doesn’t apply social science tools.

provide background information ███ ███ ██████████ ██████████

This is the best answer. The author brings up traditional legal research to give context for the rest of the passage. Traditional legal research doesn’t use social science tools for analysis. In contrast, the techniques discussed in the rest of the passage use social science tools. The author is trying to help us understand how the techniques discussed in the rest of the passage are different from traditional research.

69%

summarize an opponent's ████████

If you consider Zirkel and Schoenfeld the opponents, the discussion of traditional legal research doesn’t summarize their position. Their position involves support for “outcomes analysis.” If you don’t consider Zirkel and Schoenfeld the opponents, then there are no opponents.

10%

argue against the ███ ██ ██████ ███████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ██████████████ █████

The author supports the use of social science tools to analyze sex discrimination cases. She takes issue with one particular technique, but finds other techniques that use social science tools more useful.

emphasize the fact ████ █████ ███████████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ █████████ ██████████

The author doesn’t suggest that legal researchers harm plaintiffs. Traditional legal research might not be as helpful as it could be, but that doesn’t imply it harms plaintiffs.

reconcile traditional legal ███████████ ██ ███ ███ ██ ██████ ███████ █████

The purpose of discussing traditional legal research isn’t to encourage traditional legal researchers to use social science tools or to make them more comfortable with it. We have no evidence the author wants to encourage traditional legal researchers to incorporate social science tools. Even if the author finds social science analysis useful to plaintiffs, this doesn’t imply the author wants traditional legal researchers to change their own approaches.

10%

PrepTest 101 - Section 1 - Passage 3 - Question 17

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