Reading Comprehension · Law
PrepTest 121 · Section 3 · Passage 3
Questions 13–19
Before you start
Open PrepTest 121, Section 3 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 13–19, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: introduces a group's claim, notes the law has not settled it, and sets up the tension between the old rule and new challenges
- P2: explains the standard framework decision-makers use, then introduces the group's competing framework and the philosophy behind each
- P3: spells out the special features of the competing framework
- P4: explains why the group usually loses under the standard framework, then predicts a change and endorses the group's side
Step 2 · The kid passage
Who Gets the Ribbon?
The fair's rules have never been written down, but the Garden Club says its members deserve credit for the compost tower. Judges have always handed ribbons to whoever signed the sign-up sheet, and lately the club has been protesting. Judges use the Name-on-the-Sheet idea: a project belongs to the kids on the sheet, or to a team that signs up as if it were one kid, and those owners may do whatever they like with it. They may carry it home after the fair and hand it in on any day. The Garden Club thinks differently. A few clubs now use sheets, but the Garden Club, like every club that has ever protested, uses the Whole Club idea: each member gets an equal vote on how projects are used. A member is a caretaker, not a title holder. Nobody can trade away a share, and a share is not handed down when a fifth grader graduates, though new third graders share it just by joining. Club projects stay in the school garden, get a fresh name each spring, and are handed in on the last day by members all wearing green. Because members share just by joining, the club almost never has a sheet. The after-school program, which kept a neat sheet, usually wins, even for projects the club started. But as judges see that the sheet rule does not fit every group, they will slowly accept the club's kind of claim, and they should.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Shared Team Name
Judge Abernathy peered over her glasses. "The newcomer registered the name 'Thunder Pins' with the bowling league office. He has the paper. The old neighborhood team has nothing." Mr. Whitfield snapped his suspenders. "Your Honor, they have nothing on paper because, on that team, the name belongs to everybody at once. Nobody registers it, nobody sells it, and new bowlers share it the day they join." He held up the league form. "This form only measures one kind of claim. Judging a shared claim by a single-owner form is like timing a swim race with a ruler." The judge nodded slowly. "So the paper proves the newcomer fits our usual rule, not that the team has no claim." Mr. Whitfield beamed. "Exactly. Different kinds of claims need different proof."