Q16

[Aquamarine]

I'm quite confused about Q.16.
I thought B and C could be right answers too, but I am still not sure why they're wrong. And I don't get why E is a better answer.

(B) The first and second paragraphs talked about outcomes analysis (Zirkel and Schoenfeld were enthusiastic about and criticized traditional legal research by using it.) Besides, L 13~15 also talked about the two scholars. So that's why I thought C could be an answer too.
(C) Because of L 2~6, I thought C could be an answer too.

What's the differences among E (which is the right answer), B and C?
And why is E is a better answer than them?

Please someone enlighten me.
Thanks in advance!

[ohthatpatrick]

Thanks for the question!

I would start by asking myself about the keywords in the question stem, "Zirkel and Schoenfeld" ... "Where do we discuss them?"

They're directly discussed in lines 6 - 15. We know
1 - they like using social science tools to analyze cases
2 - they've shown how social science tools can be useful to a bunch of different people
3 - they have enthusiasm for "outcomes analysis"

The first filter I normally apply when reading RC answer choices is extreme language. SO many answers are wrong simply for having one word that's too strong.

(A) "first"
(B) "confined" ... i.e. they ONLY studied X
(C) "NO value"
(D) "rejected"
(E) pretty soft ... 'believed it would be relevant'

So (E) is already out to a big lead. Can we support it?

Sure! If they have 'enthusiasm' for 'outcomes analysis', they must think it's a useful tool.

We know they've shown the usefulness of social science tools for plaintiffs (and others). So in context, it's pretty safe to say they think that 'outcomes analysis' is useful for plaintiffs.

(A) who says they're the FIRST?
(B) who says they ONLY studied outcomes analysis?
(C) who says they saw NO value in traditional legal research?
(D) who says they REJECTED policy capturing?

Since you phrased your question as "Why is E better?", I want to warn you that you shouldn't be thinking that there are ever multiple legit answers, and that one is MORE right than the others.

The way LSAT is written, four of them are BROKEN. One of them is SAFE. The safe one is supportable, even if it's not perfect.

So the main way to improve at RC is to hone in on the specific words that are breaking the wrong answers. Most of the time it's
- an extreme word
- an out of scope word (something we never talked about)
- a comparative word

Technically, these are all "out of scope", i.e. "something we never talked about".

But it's useful to train your brain to be particularly dubious of strong sounding and comparative words.

It also seems like you may have been fishing for support from throughout the passage, when the window of info we have about Z&S is really just 6-15. We have ZERO information about how Z&S feel about "policy capturing", for example.

In order to write trap answers, the test writers have to grab words/phrases we saw in the passage and put them into the wrong answers (to make those wrong answers feel more tempting).

Our best defense is to clearly limit the Proof Window, in this case lines 6-15, so we can be confident that anything outside that window is probably just a trap.

Hope this helps.

[Aquamarine]

Thanks for the question!

I would start by asking myself about the keywords in the question stem, "Zirkel and Schoenfeld" ... "Where do we discuss them?"

They're directly discussed in lines 6 - 15. We know
1 - they like using social science tools to analyze cases
2 - they've shown how social science tools can be useful to a bunch of different people
3 - they have enthusiasm for "outcomes analysis"

The first filter I normally apply when reading RC answer choices is extreme language. SO many answers are wrong simply for having one word that's too strong.

(A) "first"
(B) "confined" ... i.e. they ONLY studied X
(C) "NO value"
(D) "rejected"
(E) pretty soft ... 'believed it would be relevant'

So (E) is already out to a big lead. Can we support it?

Sure! If they have 'enthusiasm' for 'outcomes analysis', they must think it's a useful tool.

We know they've shown the usefulness of social science tools for plaintiffs (and others). So in context, it's pretty safe to say they think that 'outcomes analysis' is useful for plaintiffs.

(A) who says they're the FIRST?
(B) who says they ONLY studied outcomes analysis?
(C) who says they saw NO value in traditional legal research?
(D) who says they REJECTED policy capturing?

Since you phrased your question as "Why is E better?", I want to warn you that you shouldn't be thinking that there are ever multiple legit answers, and that one is MORE right than the others.

The way LSAT is written, four of them are BROKEN. One of them is SAFE. The safe one is supportable, even if it's not perfect.

So the main way to improve at RC is to hone in on the specific words that are breaking the wrong answers. Most of the time it's
- an extreme word
- an out of scope word (something we never talked about)
- a comparative word

Technically, these are all "out of scope", i.e. "something we never talked about".

But it's useful to train your brain to be particularly dubious of strong sounding and comparative words.

It also seems like you may have been fishing for support from throughout the passage, when the window of info we have about Z&S is really just 6-15. We have ZERO information about how Z&S feel about "policy capturing", for example.

In order to write trap answers, the test writers have to grab words/phrases we saw in the passage and put them into the wrong answers (to make those wrong answers feel more tempting).

Our best defense is to clearly limit the Proof Window, in this case lines 6-15, so we can be confident that anything outside that window is probably just a trap.

Hope this helps.

Thanks! It's really helpful!