Q10

[katie.raitz]

For this question, a wrong-to-right answer deduction approach leads me to pick A.

B - Narrow scope - no mention of "definition"
C - Narrow scope - the author doesn't say that the judge would use the "right of recourse" to their advantage to disguise their real reasoning
D - Narrow scope - "unfair" is too strong of a characterization
E - Unsupported - the author does not include whether this mechanism is central to means of addressing judicial bias

Is there a line or phrase in the text that clearly indicates that this is an established principle of law (rather than something more specific to this kind of law)?

On the first pass through, B seemed appealing because it is more narrowly defined. I eliminated B because it used the word "definition" and there was no definition in this paragraph.

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Author Opinion

Answer expected in lines/paragraph:
46-54

Any prephrase?
If I weren't peeking at the answers, I would have completed that sentence as "regards this legal principle as a reason why there would be no reason to go after a biased judge who nonetheless delivered an adequately reasoned verdict."

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:

(A) This seems fair, although there's not much context justifying it.

(B) This grabs wording from 25-26, which makes me trust it far less. It's also just more specific than (A), so it requires more support to justify picking it.

(C) Too negative. The author is addressing a potential objection in the last paragraph: "But what if the judge is just using legally adequate reasoning to disguise her real reasoning?" The author is saying that, were that to be true, we should still be cool with it, since the judge did use adequate legal reasoning. We can't go as far as this answer choice and say that our author thinks that judges specifically use this legal principle in order to disguise the motivation behind their reasoning.

(D) Too negative. The author's point in this paragraph is that judges, even if they did offer legally adequate reasoning as a cover for their bias, would still be acting fairly.

(E) Too strong to call this "central". The author's central means of addressing bias is getting rid of disqualifying motions and instead forcing judges to either make clear their grounds for recusing themselves or make clear the reasoning they use in reaching a verdict.

Takeaway/Pattern: This is an annoying correct answer, since it's basically just a leftover answer that has no real support from the passage. It's the most conservative judgment. C and D clearly go in the wrong direction, and B and E get too specific. Modern RC seems to throw us a couple questions like this per test, where we are partially just using common sense.

#officialexplanation