Q21

[megm7267]

How would (E) increase the justice system's ability to prevent leading questions from causing mistaken court decisions?

Is this implying that the system would be able to review the transcripts and then accurately decide which aspects of the transcripts could've been leading?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

Your assessment is correct -- the author's main point for the passage as a whole is that the memory of witnesses can be altered in subtle ways because of leading questions throughout the criminal process. If there were full transcripts, there would at the least be a record against which the testimony could be gauged. This certainly wouldn't be sufficient to prevent issues w/leading questions, but, relative to the passage we are given, and relative to the other answer choices given, it would do the most to help.

[ttunden]

Throughout the passage the author shows precious
little interest in proposing solutions for what seems
to be a major, multi-cause dilemma facing the
judicial system. But question 21 insists that at
least one solution is inferable. Prediction may well
come up short here, so you should move rapidly to
the choices, knowing that one and only one will link
up acceptably to the text:

(A)—the issue of time, as well as the reference to
“tangential” details, comes out of paragraph 3, but
where the author is concerned with the amount of
time between an event and its recollection, (A)
brings up the amount of time given to a witness to
answer—utterly irrelevant.

(B)—as far as we can tell from lines 7-8, there are
no problems with the current criteria for disallowing
testimony. Problems are caused when LQs are
asked and answered prior to court—a fact that in
the end will lead us to correct choice (E), when we
encounter it.

(C)’s reference to questions of a non-leading nature
is way outside the scope, and
“nuances...of...responses” is a phrase that has no
bearing on the text.

(D)—evidently such interrogation already goes on.
And even if more extensive questioning were called
for, it would leave more room for leading questions
that could exacerbate the current problem.

(E) is all that’s left, and in fact it’s inferable from
lines 11-17. One way to assess whether LQs had
been asked pre-trial, and whether the earliest
responses to such LQs had distorted witnesses’
testimony later on, would be to consult just the
comprehensive transcripts that (E) describes.

[tommywallach]

Has this explanation been copy/pasted from another source?

-t

[SeyoungK790]

When reading this passage, I figured out the key question would be finding why/how the leading question yield the unreliable testimony of the eyewitness.
And thru reading the 2nd paragraph, I figured out because of our memory system which tends to process the new data, if not significantly conflicting, as a reinforcement of the corresponding aspect of the existing data or filling the gap.

Therefore, reading this as a problem-solution structure, for eradicating the problem of unreliable witness due to the leading question prior to the courtroom interrogation, we should check/ confirm the new data which have been interacted before the trial.
Via this reasoning process, I could easily accessed to the correct answer of E on Quesition #21

But when I was solving this question for the first time, I randomly added my own assumption of referring the "unreliable" testimony to be imbalanced or somewhat biased one.. Therefore, I checked (D) as my 1st time answer cuz I believed that the both sides of lawyers could function as "check and balance" and prevent from yielding biases..
When I could not have spent enough time reading the passage, I automatically add my own assumptions, which are usually invalid and check the wrong answers.. (I'm the one who is adulterated by the leading question of LSAT :p)

After my long excuses.. I want to ask you if the question 21 could be solved with a scope in mind as of "increase the justice system's ability" and the time scope of "prior to appearance of the witness"
: Using the time scope, D and E are only left
And because D has nothing to do with Justice system's ability but it's the solution only between of lawyers,
D could be deleted in my opinion.
What do you think about my solution of Q21?? is it too weird??

[smiller]

Thanks for your patience. We're catching up with a few questions that slipped by us recently.

I definitely wouldn't call your explanation weird. It can be useful to consider different approaches to LSAT questions and different ways of evaluating answers.

I'm not sure if it's totally accurate to say that the passage has a "problem-solution" structure because the author doesn't present a solution. The first paragraph mentions that judges can disallow leading questions (lines 7-8). But the point of the passage is that this doesn't really solve the problem. The rest of the passage explains why this isn't a completely effective solution. It seems more useful to look at this as a one-sided passage, one that explains a problem.

When you mention "problem-solution structure," if you mean that the passage presents a problem and Q21 asks us to consider a possible solution, that's totally accurate.

Choice (D) might be a tempting answer at first glance, but it might actually make the problem worse. Lines 11-17 state that a witnesses testimony can be influenced by leading questions that are asked before the witness ever enters the courtroom. Choice (D) might expose a witness to a greater number of leading questions.

Since we know that leading questions can influence the witness even before the witness appears in court, it's definitely useful to notice that choice (E) involves that time frame. Of course, a correct answer could address a different aspect of the problem, something that happens at a later time. As always, it's useful to understand why the other answers don't really solve the problem, or might even make it worse, giving us reason to eliminate or at least be suspicious of them.