Q6

[Ga HyunK147]

Hi - so I see that the text evidence for this question is probably the last few sentences of the passage, but even after reading them several times, I'm not sure how they translate into Choice B.

I took the last part of the passage as saying that despite concerns shown by both judges and critics, the exposure to mass media is not so relevant to impartiality. Everyone these days is inevitably exposed to mass media, and so jurors should also be selected among one of those who are exposed. Rather, impartiality resides in a process of deliberation itself, not in any other factors. That was my understanding of the passage's conclusion.

So I had difficult time answering the question, but chose (A) in the end because it sounded most like what i wrote above - making decisions in the process of deliberation.

Can someone explain this for me?

Thanks in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, the final two sentences are really tough to understand.

The context of the passage is thinking that
IMPARTIALITY = you haven't been 'tainted' with prior knowledge of the case

The author is trying to redefine impartiality to mean
IMPARTIALITY = being a normal person, which often means you DO have prior knowledge of the case.

He's kinda saying "an impartial jury should be representative of the community", so if the community has been exposed to mass media coverage, then the jurors should too.

He also says the jurors should be "curious, and even opinionated people".

(A) sounds too much like the other side of the Scale. This sounds more like the OLD notion of impartiality, in that it seeks to have jurors without personal experiences.

The author was arguing for the opposite. Can you find any lines in the passage that sound like (A)? (specifically, lines that sound like the author, since it's "Keeping with the passage's [author's] argument") We're always wary of extreme language, and (A) has a pretty scary "ONLY" in it.

Meanwhile, (B) lines up more with lines 55-58, since those lines encourage the panel to be informed, curious, and even opinionated.

The author was trying to pacify people worried that they couldn't find jurors who hadn't already been exposed to mass-media exposure. And these people don't believe that jurors are capable of shedding their prior experiences ("mental contortions beyond anyone's power to execute").

The author was saying, "Don't worry --- it's okay that they've been exposed --- they're normal people. That's what we want."