Q26

[luluc]

I struggled between (A) and (C) and correctly picked (C) because I felt it is a closer summary of how English regarded Constitution in the passage. However, I am not sure why (A) would be incorrect?

[ohthatpatrick]

With "according to the passage" questions, we are largely trying to use the keywords in the question stem to find what sentence or window of text the question is testing.

Here we would search for "what was the English's attitude toward the English Constitution / how was it different from colonial's".

We see we're being tested on line 44-49.

English conception of "constitution":
the whole body of law and legal custom formulated since the beginning of the kingdom
vs.
Colonial conception of "constitution":
a specific written document, enumerating specific powers

(A) We don't have a great match for "legal foundation" ... that's not the same as "the history of laws formulated since the beginning". A legal foundation happens at one point in time, probably with one specific written document (this sounds more like the colonial constitution). An entire body of law formulated since the beginning is an ever-accruing, potentially infinite entity.

(B) "a document" is a poor match for English, better match for Colonial.

(C) "a cumulative corpus" = "the whole body since the beginning" and "legislation and legal traditions" = "law and legal custom".

(D) This is the wrong paragraph, wrong idea.

(E) Unchangeable sounds more like colonial, not like the English's ever-evolving body of law.

[JamieY105]

I had a bit of trouble for the explanation as to why answer choice (D) would be wrong. The top of paragraph four suggets that the colonies were not fond of parliament or assemblies changing the Constitution. I don't see how the above explanation for why (D) is incorrect explains this issue.

I would like to suggest that answer choice D indicates that the point of difference is that Royal Authorities could change the constitution. It is unclear the British would agree that a Royal Authority, such as a king, would have such power; thus answer D is incorrect.