Thurgood Marshall's litigation of Brown v. Board of Education in 1952—the landmark case, decided in 1954, that made segregation illegal in United States public schools—was not his first case before the U.S. Supreme Court. ████ █████ ████████ █████ ████ ███ █████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███ ███████ █████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ███ █████████████ ██ ██████ ███████ ████ █████████ ███████████ ██ ████ █████ ███████████ █████ ██ █████ ██████████ ███ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ ██████████████ ███████ ███████ █████████ ████ █████ ███ ███ ███ ███████ ██ ██████
Legal scholars' perspective ·Thurgood Marshall succeeded in Brown v. Board because of past litigation
Marshall had other cases in Supreme Court prior to Brown v. Board (which made segregation illegal in public schools).
Connection between Shelley and Brown ·Use of sociological data in Shelley helped court to accept same kind of data in Brown
Passage Style
Single position
Spotlight
11.
The function of the third █████████ ██ ██
Question Type
Purpose of paragraph
Structure
P3 describes how Marshall’s strategy worked in practice. He started by arguing that in individual cases facilities were not in fact equal. But he then moved to a broader social argument in Shelley v. Kraemer, which helped pave the way for his argument in Brown.
a
provide support for ███ ████ █████████ ██ ███ █████ █████████
This is the best answer. P3 provides support for the view that “the cases [Marshall] presented to the court in the sixteen years before his successful argument for desegregation of public schools were necessary forerunners of that case: preliminary tests of legal strategies and early erosions of the foundations of discrimination against African Americans that paved the way for success in Brown.” P3 describes cases that scholars believe prepared the court for accepting Marshall’s argument against “separate but equal” in Brown.
b
sharpen the distinction ████ ██ ███ ██████ █████████
The purpose of P3 isn’t to clarify or sharpen the distinction between the less theoretical and more theoretical approaches described in P2. Although P3 does involve a discussion of cases involving both approaches, the reason the author discusses these cases is to show how Marshall’s strategy actually worked out in practice. P2 discusses his strategy, and P3 discusses the resutls. The author isn’t trying to help us understand the difference between the less/more theoretical approaches in P3.
c
question the claim ████ ██ ███ █████ █████████
P3 doesn’t question any claim in P1. Rather, it supports the scholars claim in P1.
d
summarize the argument ████ ██ ███ █████ ███ ██████████
P3 discusses new material — how Marshall’s strategy worked out in practice. It doesn’t merely recap what’s said in P1 and P2.
P3 doesn’t counter criticism of “separate but equal.” It tells us the cases Marshall worked on that led up to his successful overturning of “separate but equal.”
Difficulty
86% of people who answer get this correct
This is a moderately difficult question.
It is significantly harder than the average question in this passage.
CURVE
Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right
25%131
143
75%156
Analysis
Purpose of paragraph
Structure
Law
Single position
Spotlight
Answer Popularity
PopularityAvg. score
a
86%
166
b
9%
161
c
0%
157
d
4%
158
e
1%
147
Question history
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