Q16

[sujunglee.sj]

Hello!

I picked (A) for this question, and even after re-reading the passage, I still can't find support for why (D), the correct answer choice, is better than (A). Can someone please explain this? Thanks in advance!

[sAfuRos]

Hello!

I picked (A) for this question, and even after re-reading the passage, I still can't find support for why (D), the correct answer choice, is better than (A). Can someone please explain this? Thanks in advance!

Re-read the passage; basically, A is a concern that only the author brings up and which there is no indication that lawyers themselves are aware of. Given that it is a most strongly implies, A is probably the second best choice but falls short to D, which is almost explicitly stated in the first paragraph lines 7-10: "..many lawyers believe that if the weakness is likely to be revealed in opposing testimony, it should be volunteered; otherwise, the hostile revelation would be more damaging"

[rinagoldfield]

Thanks for your posts! I can definitely see why (A) is super tempting. Ultimately, however, there is clearer line support for (D).

In the first paragraph, the author describes “stealing thunder” only when the opponents are likely to exploit a piece of negative information, writing “many lawyers believe that if the weakness is likely to be revealed in opposing testimony, it should be volunteered; otherwise, the hostile revelation would be more damaging.” Thus (D) is supported.

(A) adds some misplaced modifiers: “readily,” “especially” and “very.” The third paragraph does say that stealing thunder only works when negative information can be positively framed. However, this is different from whether information can be “readily” (easily) framed. Similarly, the discussion of “very negative” information is separate from the discussion of framing. The author implies that stealing thunder is not a good idea with very negative information regardless of framing (lines 55-end). (A) is thus unsupported.

(B) is out of scope. Outside information is not discussed.

(C) is unsupportively vague. The author doesn’t discuss lawyers spending a lot of time anticipating jurors’ reactions.

(E) is out of scope. The passage does not mentions psychological research or legal statistics.

Hope this helps.

--Rina

[moshemeer]

Thanks for your posts! I can definitely see why (A) is super tempting. Ultimately, however, there is clearer line support for (D).

In the first paragraph, the author describes “stealing thunder” only when the opponents are likely to exploit a piece of negative information, writing “many lawyers believe that if the weakness is likely to be revealed in opposing testimony, it should be volunteered; otherwise, the hostile revelation would be more damaging.” Thus (D) is supported.

(A) adds some misplaced modifiers: “readily,” “especially” and “very.” The third paragraph does say that stealing thunder only works when negative information can be positively framed. However, this is different from whether information can be “readily” (easily) framed. Similarly, the discussion of “very negative” information is separate from the discussion of framing. The author implies that stealing thunder is not a good idea with very negative information regardless of framing (lines 55-end). (A) is thus unsupported.

(B) is out of scope. Outside information is not discussed.

(C) is unsupportively vague. The author doesn’t discuss lawyers spending a lot of time anticipating jurors’ reactions.

(E) is out of scope. The passage does not mentions psychological research or legal statistics.


Hope this helps.

--Rina

Regarding why E is incorrect, I think passage does mention psychological research but lawyer doesn't have to know about them...

[zacbell412]

If someone could help me out with understanding why D is correct. If the AC had read "should depend on how probable it is that the opposition will mention the negative information in question" I would completely agree that this is supported. However, I got hung up on the lines "should depend on how probable it is that the opposition will try to derive an advantage from mentioning the negative information in question." I felt as though this "advantage" took the AC out of scope for the support presented in paragraph 1. Nothing mentions trying to derive an advantage, just the likelihood of the information being presented at all.

[ohthatpatrick]

Lines 4-10 seem like good support (remember, it doesn't have to be perfect).

"There's no point in revealing a weakness that ... would not be exploited by one's opponents".

"If the weakness IS likely to be revealed, it should be volunteered."

The idea of opposing counsel exploiting our weakness is synonymous with trying to derive an advantage.

[XiaoranZ794]

Regarding why A is wrong, I think it's because A is what the author implies from the psychological explanation, but we don't know whether "many lawyers" share that opinion.