LR Drill Set 8, Question 7
Although most good judges are both impartial and(45 more words not shown)
If all of the statements(12 more words not shown)
- AMost bad judges(9 more words not shown)
- BSome uncompassionate people(7 more words not shown)
- CMost people who(8 more words not shown)
- DFew people who(13 more words not shown)
- ESome people who(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Don't try to hold this whole sentence in your head at once. Ask what each statement tells us about good judges.
Most are both impartial and compassionate. Every good judge must also be willing to apply the law despite strong personal beliefs. If someone is unwilling to do that, the passage rules that person out as a good judge.
Then we get another requirement: every good judge has a thorough knowledge of the law. Those last two requirements belong to the same people. A good judge has both the knowledge and the willingness to apply it despite personal beliefs.
The last statement gives a different kind of information: few people who lack an understanding of human psychology and motivations make good judges. Keep that group straight. It's a statement about how rarely people without that understanding become good judges, not a description of everyone who understands psychology.
What we’re looking for
For the must-be-true question, I'll check which group each answer talks about and what we actually know about it. The two universal requirements for good judges give us a particularly clear overlap to work with.
Working the answers
- A
A judge could understand human psychology very well and still be a bad judge for some other reason—for example, refusing to apply a law that conflicts with personal beliefs. The passage gives no proportion of bad judges who lack psychological understanding. We can't turn facts about requirements for good judges into this claim about most bad judges.
- B
We aren't guaranteed an uncompassionate person who knows the law thoroughly. Most good judges being both impartial and compassionate leaves open the possibility that all of them are compassionate. And the passage doesn't give us another group of uncompassionate people whose legal knowledge we can use. B might be true, but the facts don't require it.
- C
Now the group is everyone who understands human psychology, not good judges. We don't know what proportion of that different group is impartial and compassionate. Even if the good judges in that group have those qualities, plenty of other people in it might not. C transfers a statement about most good judges to a different population.
- D
Thorough legal knowledge is required of good judges, but people can possess that knowledge without being good judges. The passage doesn't tell us how many of those other knowledgeable people lack psychological understanding. The fact that both subjects appear in the passage is not enough to establish this proportion among everyone who knows the law thoroughly.
- ECorrect
The good judges provide the people we're looking for. They have thorough knowledge of the law, and they are willing to apply it regardless of strong personal beliefs. That establishes some people with both traits. We don't need every legally knowledgeable person to have that willingness, and we certainly don't need every judge to be a good judge. This answer only needs the overlap the good judges already supply.
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