LSAT 150 | Section 4 | Reading Comprehension: Q22

RC Question 22 Explanation

DISCUSSION: You should check out my analysis section if you’re stuck on this question. I’ll copy the key section.

“Based on this, the two passages are perfectly consistent. Passage A says trial courts should sometimes conduct research, as the adversarial process and live testimony provide safeguards.

Passage B says appellate courts should not conduct research, as there is no adversarial process or live testimony.”

So each author views live testimony and adversarial fact finding as the key to successful research. Because trials have these, author A thinks trial judges can research. Because appeals don’t have these, author B thinks appeals judges can’t research.

In each case, live testimony and an adversarial fact finding process are the key to successful judicial research. In other words, the procedure of a trial is key.

___________

1. CORRECT. See the explanation above. “The structure of a trial” means things like testimony, cross examination.
2. Reliable sources don’t cut it. The key is you have to be able to to live testimony of experts. See lines 37-39 in passage B: “experts….may have knowledge and experience….beyond….the available scientific literature”.
3. This directly contradicts passage A. On lines 26-27, the author says that judicial research “supplements, rather than replaces”. This answer got it backwards.
4. This is a trap answer. Author A says “trial level, yes”. Author B says “Appelate level, no”. It’s possible they each would agree with each other. But, we don’t know. Maybe author A would also say appeals court judges can do research in some circumstances. Maybe author B would say not even trial judges should do research.
    
   Since neither author directly addressed the topic of the other passage, we can’t know.
5. Author B thinks that appeals court judges usurp the trial court’s fact finding function if they do research. But author B doesn’t think it’s a problem for trial court judges to do research. When they do, then this becomes part of the fact finding function at trial.