Q17

[khaleesiwantstodolaw]

I picked E for this question. I understand why B is correct but can someone please help me eliminate E and A.

[sumukh09]

A is unsupported as there's no indication that the judges would "most likely" disagree with an earlier judges decision and subsequently overturn that decision. They may disagree but saying that they'll 'most likely' disagree is too strong and not supported by the passage.

E is also unsupported as there's nothing in the passage that says that judges would point out in their holdings the internal contradictions arising from earlier judges' differing interpretations.

[tommywallach]

Hey Guys,

Great response from Sumukh, but this is a good question, so I'll quickly go over all the answer choices.

(A) The realists believed that judges can use whichever laws they want to make a decision, so their decision is, in some ways, arbitrary (or at least very subjective). Thus, they wouldn't necessarily disagree with earlier interpretations of a given case. They could agree with some part of all the interpretations, or disagree with all of them.

(B) CORRECT. This is supported by the overall philosophy of the realists.

(C) This actually contradicts the passage. The judges do not believe themselves to be bound by all the rules. If they were, they wouldn't be able to exercise their own judgment.

(D) doesn't make any sense. The lack of unanimity is the status quo. That hardly means there's no precedent; in fact, it means there are many precedents!

(E) describes exactly how the judges will write their decision. But we can't possibly know that. They don't have to point out the contradictions in order to come to their own conclusion (in the same way that I could start a religion without pointing what I see as the problems with existing religions).

Hope that helps!

-t