Q17

[laura.bach]

Just wanted to make sure I was on track for this and hopefully have someone clarify why (E) is incorrect.

I would assume it's because:
1. The author isn't refuting claims, the author is describing Meyerson's arguments refuting these claims. So "description" rather than "refute" is a more accurate answer choice.

2. "Various scholars" sounds off to me. Maybe it's because "various scholars" could be construed to mean refuting the claims of both Meyerson and CLS or because it would be awkward to refer to the proponents of CLS as "various scholars" because no individual scholars are mentioned.

I feel like this reasoning is a weak though. Additionally, while I could see why it's a better answer I also had a trouble with (D) because it seems like the purpose is more to describe a response to a challenge to a school of thought.

Any advice? Thanks in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

Great work!

I completely agree with your #1 and #2, but only #2 is weak. I don't love calling CLS by the name of "various scholars", but I probably could live with it if I had to.

But #1 is a very good reason. The author's opinion never makes an appearance in this passage, so using the verb "refute" for the author's purpose is too unsupported. The passage is full of little reminders, such as "according to Meyerson", that remind us that we're hearing HER opinion.

I agree that (D) could have read "response to a challenge", where
school of thought = legal tradition
challenge = CLS
response = Meyers

But that doesn't mean that (D) is wrong to say
school of thought = CLS
challenge = Meyers

CLS is described as "a movement", which I think qualifies as a school of thought.

Like you, I would have probably predicted that the answer would be phrased in some form like "Meyers is defending X against X's critics".

But it's a good reminder that we usually work Wrong to Right and pick the least broken answer.

=== other answers ===

(A) the author does no evaluation whatsoever. He merely presents Meyerson's views on CLS

(B) there's no background story to how CLS came to be a movement

C) the author does no advocating. (A), (C), and (E) are all vulnerable to the same problem: the author is neutrally presenting Meyerson's views. (but we could also add that Meyerson isn't offering a NEW interpretation of legal tradition, just arguing that legal tradition as it currently stands is not vulnerable to all the objections posed by CLS)

[keonheecho]

In lines 35-38, isn't the author agreeing with Meyerson? Or is this not the view of the author?

For some reason, I think the passage is neutral when it is not, and vice versa...

To me it seemed like this statement was the view of the author

Thank you in advance

[dhlim3]

It came down to B & D for me and I ultimately picked B. I saw this passage as a narration of the two conflicting views of a certain school of thought (orthodox legal theory), and I thought the passage as a whole described how and why the CLS took issues with the orthodox theory (hence "how a controversy arose").

For example, if I said, "Only the people with 700 credit score or higher should be a lawyer" and my friend opposed it by saying "But you don't even have a 700 score and you are trying to be a lawyer, so you are contradicting yourself.", and then another friend of mine defends me by saying, "He's not contradicting himself because he still has 3 years while in Law School to build up his credit to above 700", then I can say that the controversy arose when my friend pointed out the contradiction in my statement. I don't see how this is any different from what the passage is doing (the controversy arose when people found contradiction in the orthodox legal theory, which resulted in CLS movement), and I fail to see the flaw in answer choice B.

[ohthatpatrick]

You're saying the focus of the passage was the battle between CLS and orthodox legal theory. CLS is going after orthodox legal theory with a couple harsh accusations, so we could call that a controversy. And describing the things that CLS says about orthodox legal theory is, in a sense, explaining how this controversy arose.

I think you would more likely hear the test refer to that as "describing one school of thought's criticisms of another" vs. "explaining how a controversy arose", but I could force myself to say (B) could describe the material about CLS vs. orthodox legal theory.

But you seem to be missing that the main purpose of the passage is Meyerson vs. CLS.

That first paragraph sets out the thesis in the second sentence. Everything after that just unpacks that sentence. Lines 4-7 are the highest level in the passage's outline. The focus of the passage is Meyerson's rebuttal to all the stuff that CLS said about orthodox legal theory.

If (B) isn't describing Meyerson, it isn't describing the primary focus of the passage.

[nnn2108]

For answer D, could we say that the "school of thought" being referred to, is the Critical Legal Studies movement? I also got tripped up by D, because I figured that the passage was describing a response to a challenge made by the Cricial Legal Studies movement against the orthodox legal theory, "school of thought". However, upon closer review, it seems like it could be saying that the passage describes Meyerson's challenge to the Critical Legal Studies, school of thought.

Is this fair reasoning?