Reading Comprehension · Law
PrepTest 136 · Section 1 · Passage 2
Questions 8–14
Before you start
Open PrepTest 136, Section 1 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 8–14, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- Passage A, P1: reports a challenger's first complaint about a kind of evidence
- Passage A, P2: reports the challenger's further complaints about missing error figures and standards
- Passage A, P3: the decision maker answers by conceding a limit, then relying on long use and expert agreement
- Passage A, P4: grants a variation, counters with the consistency of training and testing, and rules against the challenge
- Passage B, P1: argues generally that the method lacks objective standards, describing two approaches
- Passage B, P2: raises unknown odds of chance resemblance and poor sample quality
- Passage B, P3: notes the error rate is barely studied and questions the tests that look good
Step 2 · The kid passage
Two Takes on the Sock Matcher
Passage A (Grandpa's ruling in Kid Court): Tommy appeals the family ruling against him. Aunt Rosa, the family sock matcher, tied a sock found under the couch beside candy wrappers to his drawer. Tommy says sock matching was never tested; Aunt Rosa named no study showing no two house socks look alike. Tommy also says nobody knows how often matchers get it wrong, and that matchers have no shared rule. Aunt Rosa admitted there is no agreed number of matching stripes needed. Sock matching is not a law of science, true. But this family has used it for thirty years, and the grownups have always trusted it. More testing would be nice, but I will not throw it out. Some homes demand closer matches than others, yet matchers all use the same stripes-and-colors approach. Aunt Rosa is quizzed every laundry day and was trained by Grandma. The ruling stands.
Passage B (Lulu's clipboard report on sock matching in general): Sock matchers have no objective rule for calling a match. Some count matching stripes, but nobody agrees on how many, and every house does it differently. Others eyeball the whole sock. We know two kids can own socks with the same stripes, but the odds of that are unknown. Found socks are usually dusty and half hidden. How often do matchers get it wrong? Hardly anyone has checked. Easy laundry quizzes show few mistakes, but critics call them soft. One tough quiz found matchers wrong two times out of five.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Pie Panel
Judge Ames held up two papers. "One is a ruling that trusted the county pie panel. The other is a critic's essay about pie panels everywhere." Mr. Whitfield tugged his suspenders. "Your Honor, they disagree about everything!" "Do they?" She tapped the ruling. "This one says the tasters follow a shared scoring sheet, so they rarely get it wrong." She tapped the essay. "This one says nobody knows how often tasters get it wrong." Mr. Whitfield squinted. "So they both care whether the tasters follow steady rules." "Exactly. And they clash over how often the panel errs. One is about a single case. The other zooms out to the whole practice." She smiled. "Two clipboards, counselor. Find where both have a mark."