PT104.S2.P2.Q7 > Analytics

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By the mid-fourteenth century, professional associations of canon lawyers (legal advocates in Christian ecclesiastical courts, which dealt with cases involving marriage, inheritance, and other issues) had appeared in most of Western Europe, and a body of professional standards had been defined for them. ███

Intro topic · Professional associations of canon lawyers in the mid-14th century

These are lawyers in Christian religious courts. They had professional standards and were common in Western Europe.

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Puzzling phenomenon · The associations didn't have big role in enforcing professional standards

Some even tried to stop efforts to enforce standards (example: Florentine guild).

Two potential hypotheses · Lawyers almost never violated standards, or disciplinary mechanisms were inefficient

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Author's perspective · Disciplinary mechanisms were probably inefficient

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Support 1 · English civil courts (non-religious) have much more disciplinary action

Those courts had ethical standards similar to the religious courts. So, disparity in number of disciplinary actions is probably due to religious courts' inefficient enforcement mechanisms. It's unlikely that religious lawyers were simply much more unethical than civil lawyers.

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Support 2 · Lots of complaints by church authorities about unethical lawyers and inefficient disciplinary system

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Result of complaints (related to support 2) · Induced religious lawyers to defend themselves from criticism

Complaints may have encouraged lawyers to form professional associations and to de-prioritize disciplining fellow lawyers.

Passage Style

Phenomenon-hypothesis (RC)

Single position

Which one of the following ████ ██████ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████

Question Type

Main point

In a Phenomenon-Hypothesis passage, if the author supports a hypothesis, the MP is typically the hypothesis the author supports. In P3 and P4, the author supports the hypothesis that the reason professional associations of canon lawyers didn’t play a prominent role in enforcing standards of conduct is that disciplinary mechanisms were inefficient. In the last paragraph, the author elaborates on this inefficiency – professional associations for canon lawyers apparently were focused more on defending lawyers from criticism than on disciplining misbehaving lawyers. This is why they were inefficient at enforcing conduct rules.

Professional organizations of ████████ █████ ███████ ████████ ████ ████████ ███████ █████████ █████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ████████ ██ ██ ██ ██ ███████ ███████████

This doesn’t capture the author’s explanation for the inefficient disciplinary enforcement of canon lawyer associations. In addition, it’s unsupported, because we have no reason to think the associations “only” enforced ethical standards when provoked by outside criticism. We have reason to think the associations would strengthen their defense of their own members when facing criticism.

Professional organizations of ████████ █████ ███████ ████ ██ ████ ██████████ ████████ ███████ █████████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████████ █████████████ ██ ████████ █████ ████████

This may be supported, but it’s not the overall main point. This doesn’t capture the author’s explanation for the inefficient disciplinary enforcement of canon lawyer associations.

Professional organizations of ████████ █████ ███████ ██████████ ██████ ██ ██████ █████ ███████ ███████ ████████ ███████ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ ███████ ██████████

This best captures the author’s explanation for the inefficient disciplinary enforcement of canon lawyer associations.

83%

The ethical standards ██████████ ██ ████████████ ████████████ ██ ████████ █████ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ ████ ██ █████ ██████████████

This may be supported, but it’s not the overall main point. This doesn’t capture the author’s explanation for the inefficient disciplinary enforcement of canon lawyer associations.

Ethical standards for ████████ █████ ███████ ████ ███ ████ ████ █████ ████████████ █████████████ ███ █████ ███████ ███ ████ ███████

This doesn’t capture the author’s explanation for the inefficient disciplinary enforcement of canon lawyer associations.

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