Q21

[peg_city]

Why is C wrong?

IMO, both A and C have the same point except A is way for vague


All of C's points are in paragraph 2
Powerful preconceptions - 'Prior conviction may encourage guilt'
complex situations - "complex or voluminous evidence might be so confusing to a jury that its members would draw unwarranted conclusions"
shocking evidence - a jury may give more weight than objective analysis......"

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

(C) is a very attractive answer, but is wrong for a couple of reasons. Primary, it is too narrow in scope for the question at hand. (A) is a better representation of the entire passage. (C) is too specific in the situations it describes -- powerful preconceptions and particularly shocking evidence are small parts of a bigger point - they are not the point themselves.

Secondly, the work "make" is a bit strong for this context. The author doesn't state things so absolutely -- the point is that these situations can lead to jurors being more prone to errors in judgment.

Hope that is helpful. Beware of eliminating answers because they are vague -- the question type should determine what types of answers you are looking for, and if they are asking for a main point, chances are the answer could sound a bit vague.

[uhdang]

Looking at the passage as a whole, while the first half is concentrated in "inferential errors" by juries, I thought the second part was more concentrated on "cognitive psychology" with relation to judges' duties.

A) clearly covers the first point, but doesn't cover the "cognitive psychology" and judges' duties part. In fact, none of the answers cover both points. The closest one that covers the both, I thought, was E) because it does mention both. However, it is vastly exaggerated to say cognitive psychologists are more reliable than judges.

Do I have the second point regarding "cognitive psychology" and "judges' duties" wrong?

Clarification with this question would be appreciated.

[rinagoldfield]

Good analysis, Uhdang. (A) doesn’t cover everything in the passage, and leaves out the stuff about judges and psychologists. It’s still the best of the bunch, however. Unlike the other choices, no aspect of (A) is wrong/unsupported by the passage. (E) is too extreme in its comparison of judges and psychologists. So is (C), which says jurors “make errors” rather than “may commit inferential errors” (emphasis mine).