LSAT 104 | Section 2 | Reading Comprehension: Q8

RC Question 8 Explanation

DISCUSSION: The English courts are mentioned in the third paragraph. It’s a big paragraph. You probably should skim it over before looking at the answers (I mean a 3-7 second skim).

This question makes a logical error, which is rare for the LSAT. Lines 42-43 say there was some overlap between the civil and ecclesiastical bars. Technically, “some” means anything from one to all. So “some overlap” could mean “complete overlap”.

So we don’t truly have any evidence that some lawyers were members of one bar but not the other.

Of course, it’s highly unlikely that there was complete overlap, and in everyday speech “some” rarely refers to all. So the LSAT appears to be using “some” in a commonsense way, rather than a logical way. This is unusual for the LSAT.

___________

1. CORRECT. Lines 42-43. For a discussion of the logical weakness of this answer choice, see above.
2. Lines 31-35 show that disciplinary action was more common in the civil associations than in the canon associations.
    
   (Technically, we have no information about likelihood, since we don’t know how many members belonged to each bar.)
3. We only know about English civil lawyers. We have no idea what ethical standards civil lawyers had in the rest of Europe.
4. We have no idea why and how ecclesiastical courts originated, in England or anywhere else.
5. Lines 51-54 show that English ecclesiastical courts kept very good records – compared to other ecclesiastical courts. We have no idea whether they kept good records compared to
    
   civil courts.