Q5

[AJE770]

Can someone please explain why B is correct and A is wrong. What is the confusing issue? Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

The time-honored tradition for RC questions that ask "The author said _____ in order to / primarily to is that the correct answer reinforces the bigger idea that is connected to the detail being asked about.

Most of the time, the correct answer sounds like it reinforces the previous sentence.

If I said:
Pets are great assets in times of tragedy. For example, my pet turtle Lebron was able to put things in perspective for me after all my poetry journals were destroyed in a thunderstorm.

And they asked:
The author brings up his turtle in order to ...

The correct answer isn't about poetry or thunderstorms. It's about the previous line. It would be something like ...
(A) to corroborate the value that household animals can have to people undergoing trying circumstances

If we go to the line being quoted here and look at the previous sentences, we see the author had just said
- the legal rationale for Shelley is problematic
- the rationale used the 14th, which only holds to state actors, not individuals

The author's question is reflecting why the rationale seems problematic. Shelley recognized that the 14th only applies to state actors, but it applied the 14th to racial covenants, which is about individual actors.

(A) Not quite. The author doesn't think the distinction between state and individual is incoherent. He thinks it's a clear distinction. He's confused why Shelley would apply a rule for individuals to a clearly distinct case, state actors. If anything, the author would complain that the Court did NOT apply the distinction; it blurred the line between state and individual.

(B) Sure this works. If Shelley thinks that the 14th only applies to individual actors, then how can it apply the 14th to state actors?

(C) The complaint is never that the Court didn't attend to the facts. It knew that racial covenants were individual. It knew that the 14th only applies to individual. It invented an attribution rationale in which "enforcement" of individual contracts forced a state action. That's not a failure to attend to facts. It's a failure to read the 14th amendment in a strict fashion. So it's more of a "failure to adhere to the letter of the law"

(D) This sounds weirdly accusatory. The author isn't impugning the motives of judges.

(E) The author isn't fighting the basis for the 14th. He's complaining about how it was interpreted / applied to the facts of this case.

Hope this helps.

[AdhityaM617]

Hello! So this question type is my biggest weakness in RC, and no matter how many tests I have taken and reviewed, I continuously get them wrong. For question 5, I selected (A) as well. I understand the right answer to these "bookend" questions follow a pattern, where it reinforces the author's point stated in a previous idea, which is usually in the preceding sentences. My justification for (A) is that, even as you said, the court is blurring the lines between state actors and individuals by applying an amendment that is typically used to apply to state actors to private actors, which is mentioned in the previous sentences and also lends support to the thesis that the legal rationale for Shelley is problematic. Since this distinction falls apart, I confidently selected (A) as the answer because this was my prephrase/prediction. I thought the distinction was "incoherent" because now these lines are effectively blurred in its rationale, which is why the author is arguing that the rationale is problematic.

I admit I see the attractiveness of (B), and I kept it open upon the first pass. However, when in doubt I select the answer that matches my prephrase.

Please explain further why (A) is wrong, how (B) is correct, and how I can avoid this mistake in the future! How can a distinction be blurred and NOT incoherent at the same time?

I always look to the previous sentences and identify the main point well, but get lost in how specific lines are connecting to the aforementioned point. Thank you!!!

[AshH953]

Had the same problem and selected A in my timed test as well. After I read Patrick's post I realize that the key problem about AC A is that the incoherence is about the 'employment' instead of the 'distinction'. If A is phrased as 'demonstrate the incoherence in employing the conceptual distinction by Shelley's Court' it would be much better. In other words, A would be implying that the state/individual distinction is conceptually incoherent in itself. The Court never wishes to overthrow the distinction; it just tries to connect it by saying 'judicial enforcement' makes a private contract a state action, and the connection (employment) is stupid as it blurred the line.

That being said, I would probably still go for A-type ACs in any other timed tests...

[DorisW471]

Hello! So this question type is my biggest weakness in RC, and no matter how many tests I have taken and reviewed, I continuously get them wrong. For question 5, I selected (A) as well. I understand the right answer to these "bookend" questions follow a pattern, where it reinforces the author's point stated in a previous idea, which is usually in the preceding sentences. My justification for (A) is that, even as you said, the court is blurring the lines between state actors and individuals by applying an amendment that is typically used to apply to state actors to private actors, which is mentioned in the previous sentences and also lends support to the thesis that the legal rationale for Shelley is problematic. Since this distinction falls apart, I confidently selected (A) as the answer because this was my prephrase/prediction. I thought the distinction was "incoherent" because now these lines are effectively blurred in its rationale, which is why the author is arguing that the rationale is problematic.

I admit I see the attractiveness of (B), and I kept it open upon the first pass. However, when in doubt I select the answer that matches my prephrase.

Please explain further why (A) is wrong, how (B) is correct, and how I can avoid this mistake in the future! How can a distinction be blurred and NOT incoherent at the same time?

I always look to the previous sentences and identify the main point well, but get lost in how specific lines are connecting to the aforementioned point. Thank you!!!

Hi, I also chose A but changed to B in my blind review. Here is the reason.

I think "incoherence" means that the word used in a set of usages contains different meanings. For instance, in LR section, the stimulus once said that

A: you said that the hierarchy in teaching is damaging, teachers and students shall have equal rights. But there are easy knowledge and difficult knowledge, we have to start from the easy one.

My memory may have some mistakes but what I meant to say is that A's usage of the hierarchy is incoherent, because she refers to the rights between students and teachers at first and then refers to the level of knowledge afterward. So, there are two usages of one word and those two usages are not the same, that's my understanding of "incoherence".

Back to this question, does the author thought that the court used 2 or more meanings of the distinction in Shelly's case? No, the author thought that the usage of distinction is flawed in that case because the court kind of failed to recognize the distinction, but not an "incoherent" kind of flaw. So, it's confusing, why would the court use such kind of distinction in Shelley's case?

Hope it can help!