PrepTest 115, Section 4, Question 3
Tom: Critics of recent high court decisions claim(96 more words not shown)
Mary responds to Tom's argument(7 more words not shown)
- AShe questions Tom's(12 more words not shown)
- BShe agrees to(22 more words not shown)
- CShe defends a(20 more words not shown)
- DShe points out(15 more words not shown)
- EShe introduces a(25 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Tom treats the past as reassurance: courts overturned precedents before, the legal system survived, and today's critics should therefore be ignored. But “overturning precedent” could describe importantly different situations. We shouldn't stop at the shared description.
Mary asks us to look at what was overturned. In the earlier cases, the rulings were old and clearly outdated. In the current cases, the rulings were recent. If a court changes a rule it adopted only recently, people might wonder how long any rule will last. That is Mary's explanation of how the new reversals can undermine confidence in the law even if the earlier reversals did no harm.
Notice what Mary doesn't need to do. She doesn't have to claim that the past reversals were harmful. She can accept Tom's examples and explain why they don't settle the present case. She also doesn't take up his accusation about the critics' political motives.
What we’re looking for
The question asks how Mary responds. My prediction is that she identifies a relevant difference between the past and present situations, then uses that difference to challenge Tom's comparison.
Working the answers
- A
Mary doesn't challenge Tom's account of the effects in the past. Her response works even if those earlier reversals were harmless. She questions whether the current reversals belong in the same category, given how recent the overturned rulings are.
- B
Mary never agrees with Tom's evaluation of the critics' motives. She doesn't discuss how difficult those motives are to discover, either. Her objection concerns the age of the overturned rulings and the effect of reversing recent ones.
- C
This changes both the target and the reason for Mary's response. Tom attacks the critics, not the practice of overturning precedent. Mary challenges his dismissal of the current criticism; she isn't defending that practice against him.
Also, “old and clearly outdated” identifies the kind of ruling that was overturned. It isn't evidence about how much time the judges spent deliberating. The distinction Mary gives us is about the rulings, not the length or care of the judges' discussions.
- D
Tom's own evidence doesn't contradict his conclusion. His past examples could all be accurate while his prediction about the current cases remained unsupported. Mary supplies an additional distinction to expose that weakness. She isn't showing that Tom's evidence already says something incompatible with what he concludes.
- ECorrect
Mary separates overturning an old, outdated ruling from overturning a recent ruling. Tom treats the earlier cases as a reason to dismiss the present concern, while Mary says the current cases have a feature that makes legal harm likely. The answer captures both her distinction and its purpose: explaining why the earlier examples don't justify Tom's conclusion.
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