PrepTest 115, Section 2, Question 1
A distinguished British judge, Justice Upton, said that(47 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- AThere is nothing(6 more words not shown)
- BJudges should be(8 more words not shown)
- CJudges are qualified(11 more words not shown)
- DIf something were(19 more words not shown)
- EIf judges are(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What are judges supposed to be able to do here? Decide whether a government minister's administrative decision is reasonable. The long sentence makes that simple claim harder to see.
Think of a judge being asked to evaluate a minister's decision to dismiss an employee. Upton says the judge's training and experience should equip the judge to assess that decision. Otherwise, something would be badly wrong with the legal system. Since Upton sees little reason to think something is badly wrong, he takes the judges to be qualified.
That final reassurance about the system can sound like the point because it comes last. But ask what it supports. Upton is using it to defend the judges' ability to do the job. The thought runs: if they weren't equipped for this, we'd have a serious problem; we have little reason to suspect such a problem; so they should be equipped.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for the conclusion. I'd look for the claim about judges being able to judge these decisions. Keep it modest: being qualified to make a decision doesn't establish that every decision they actually make is right.
Working the answers
- A
This is close to the reassurance Upton uses as support. He sees little reason to suppose that something is badly wrong with the system. But that reassurance is meant to establish that judges are qualified for this task. A leaves out the claim the argument is supporting.
- B
Upton isn't asking to expand the judges' role. He is defending their qualifications to evaluate a minister's decisions. Saying someone can assess a decision is different from saying that person should receive a greater role in making it.
- CCorrect
This restates the claim about judges being qualified to determine whether a minister's administrative decision is reasonable. The concern about what an unqualified judiciary would mean for the legal system supports this claim. We don't need to add that judges always perform the task successfully.
- D
The reasoning goes the other way: judges being ill-equipped would mean something was badly wrong with the system. D says that anything badly wrong with the system would mean the judges were ill-equipped for this particular task. What if the serious problem concerned sentencing practices instead? Judges could still be qualified to assess administrative decisions. D also gives a conditional claim rather than the conclusion about these judges' qualifications.
- E
Being qualified for this one task doesn't clear the entire legal system of serious problems. A system could have qualified judges and a major problem somewhere else. Upton treats a failure of judicial qualification as a sign of trouble; he doesn't say that avoiding that particular failure guarantees that everything else is sound.
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