LSAT 114 | Section 3 | Reading Comprehension: Q11

RC Question 11 Explanation

DISCUSSION: The author’s main argument about intellectual authority in the court system is in the final paragraph. The right answer adds new context to that paragraph.

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1. The author never said judges were perfect. It’s okay for them to make bad decisions as long as intellectual authority eventually corrects them.
2. So? This is to be expected. It would be deeply weird if every legal system in the world had exactly the same percentage of flawed reasoning. 
3. “Many” could be as few as 15-20% of cases; this is vague. We need something that tells us judges rarely use intellectual authority. 
4. So? This could just mean that all legal systems use intellectual authority, but some use it even more than the others. 
5. CORRECT. This means judges aren’t using intellectual authority very often. The author thought that intellectual authority was mainly used to reconsider decisions. (lines 51-54)