Q1 - Criminals often have an unusual self-image...

[DanielZ772]

Understand this is covered in the Ch11 "Drill it" of the LR Strategy Guide, but I'm not fully satisfied by the explanation.

I'm having difficulty finding a logical standard by which we can judge option C (their actions are not truly criminal) to be supported that does not also apply to option E (they deserve only a light sentence for their crimes).

Sure, we are not sure what actions meet the threshold of "deserving of a light sentence;" but by the same token we are not sure what actions meet the threshold of being "truly criminal."

I am having difficulty in identifying support for the statement for one that do not also apply equally well to the other.

It could be objected that E assumes that the criminals perceive the actions as "crimes," while option C leaves that open. But the stimulus identifies this criminal population as "embezzlers" or "people convicted of violent crimes," which seemed to me to address this concern by restricting the relevant subset of "criminals" to those who are already facing a sentence.

[ohthatpatrick]

When they use "criminals" in sentence 1 and the conclusion, you can't assume they have been convicted, but certainly for the 2nd sentence, yes.

I think we use 'criminal' to mean 'one who can committed a crime', not necessarily 'one who has been convicted of a crime'.

Anyhoo, the gist of these examples is that the perpetrators don't believe they've commited a crime:
- only borrowing money ... not a crime
- the victim deserved it ... not a crime(?)
- it wasn't my fault ... not a crime

The problem with (E) is that if you don't think you're guilty of a crime, you wouldn't say, "I deserve only a light sentence", you would say, "I don't deserve ANY sentence. I committed no crime!"

The caveat here is that 2nd case, for which someone might actually plead for a lesser sentence because, though guilty, the victim deserved it.

However, our answer should accommodate all three examples, so (C) works better for the two cases where the criminal would definitely think of herself as innocent of a crime.

[mswang7]

If B was revised to have just sais "they are perceived to be the victim" would it have overtaken C for the correct answer?

[smiller]

Removing "of some other criminal" would make choice (B) a better answer than it is, but I don't think it would be better than (C). Based on the information in the stimulus, we might believe that criminals perceive themselves as victims. They might think that they're being treated unfairly by the criminal justice system. Why? Because their actions aren't truly criminal. So, we almost have to infer choice (C) to arrive at your reworded version of (B), which makes (C) more directly supported by the stimulus.

Even if criminals view themselves as victims for a different reason, we would have to make some other assumptions to infer that from the stimulus. Choice (C) would still be more directly supported.