Q1

[canylaw]

It is very frustrating when I get caught in the first question of the RC.I am confused b/w ACs a and e.I eliminated e in the first place since there is no other prepaid plan.But read again found out the credit card plan at the end of the first passage.

But why A is wrong?
May be because even in short term the lawyers are not benefited.If they are its only the not established lawyers who are benefited?

Thanks for helping.

[timmydoeslsat]

Answer choice A can be eliminated because of it saying that lawyers will profit in the long run at the expense of clients. The author believes that these prepaid plans will be bad for both lawyers and clients.

Look at the last sentence of the passage where it talks about how complex cases would be given minimal effort by lawyers and that this would lower quality for clients.

[bbirdwell]

I agree with timmydoeslsat.

The main point, after reading the passage is pretty much: "this legal plan sucks."

(A) is eliminated because of the last part -- the author does not think lawyers will profit at the expense of clients in the long run.

[nflamel69]

Agree with both of above reasons. As your concern with similar prepaid plans, read lines 16-18. those suggest that there are similar plans.

[brandonbodie]

In reviewing #1, I can totally see why Answer (E) is correct, however, I'm having some difficulty disqualifying Answer (D). Is it due to the wording of "widespread" consumer support or "such plans" (versus just the CAW plan) - or is it simply because this is not the main point the author is trying to convey?

Thanks!
Brandon

[Jpyezzo]

I, too, originally chose (D) as my answer..the two parts of the answer choice that I can speculate make it incorrect are "widespread consumer support" and "lawyers generally criticize."

After review, I don't think we could interpret widespread support for the CAW legal plan simply because 45% of the union members enrolled.

Also, I think the passage is less about the lawyers' criticism of the plan and more about the author's concern for the plan's effect on the legal profession.

[mnsbaseball]

After review, I don't think we could interpret widespread support for the CAW legal plan simply because 45% of the union members enrolled.

Couldn't we interpret the "widespread support" as 51% or more? 45% sounds like only "some" rather than "widespread". This is what threw me off this answer selection while reviewing this.

I originally chose D because of the LAST part of the answer. The, "...financial impact on the legal profession." because it was discussed. Widespread than popped up into my head after rereading and I put the financial impact + widespread together, which made sense to me.

[ohthatpatrick]

Great ideas and discussion so far! I'm going to put a complete explanation up for posterity's sake.

To get myself ready for any Main Point question, I force myself to paraphrase the main point to myself, and I re-read any sentence or two I identified, during reading, as the Most Valuable Sentence (MVS).

Most of these MVS's occur after a but/yet/however/recently. Authors normally start by discussing background ideas or other people's ideas, and then these pivot words signify that now the AUTHOR is ready to have HER say.

Sure enough, the MVS in this passage is line 38-40, prefaced by "But".

The first paragraph is background on CAW plans.

The second paragraph introduces a scale of opinion ... for and against the CAW plans ... as well as reasons for each side of the scale.

The last paragraph gives us the author's opinion on the matter (the main point).

Remember that Main Point questions should be answered in terms of the author's purpose in writing the passage. So if the first 80% of a passage gives the background of a problem and the final 20% involves the author's suggested remedy, that 20% is still the main point.

(A) The author thinks that CAW will probably be bad for clients and lawyers, so we can't support "in the long run lawyers will profit at the expense of clients".

(B) The author has a negative attitude toward CAW, so we can't support "probably effective".

(C) This goes overboard / beyond the passage. The author is skeptical that CAW will have positive outcomes, but we can't support the strength of "should be rejected" and the author never proposed or pushed for another "more equitable means of making legal services more generally affordable".

(D) This is completely neutral. It doesn't express any author opinion. That makes it unacceptable. Additionally, there is weak support for "widespread consumer support". We know 45% of eligible union autoworkers have enrolled. Of course, it says they "APPEAR to have embraced it". It says that the "the idea ... has been spreading in Canada", but that doesn't mean that there is already widespread support.

(E) Correct answer.
Despite what students often think, "many" is not a strong quantity. It just means some plurality. We can support 'many' with the aforementioned ideas discussed for (D). More importantly, the main clause of (E) says "it is doubtful that CAW and other similar prepaid plans will benefit lawyers and clients in the long run".

Compare that to our Most Valuable Sentence, line 38-40.

It's a very tight match.

Hope this helps.