June 2012 LSAT
Section 1
Question 10
It can be inferred that the author of passage A is
Replies
shunhe on December 28, 2019
Hi @Maroun,(A) can be affirmed by seeing that the passage is written from the point of the decision-maker of the Court, which is the judge, not the prosecutor. We see in line 21 that the author writes "this court sees," and goes on to affirm the decision of the "trial court below" in line 33. This is something that a Court would rule, not a prosecutor, as in (C). Prosecutors do not speak on behalf of the court or affirm/deny lower court decisions. Hope this helps!
Nativeguy on August 22, 2023
Thank you for answering Maroun's question, I also see what you are saying and can better understand now how it would apply to the role of a judge.Not trying to be contentious, however, I was under the impression that the LSAT doe not test outside information, I obviously know what the role of a judge and prosecutor is, however, those roles are not necessarily mentioned in the passage. Would you say that contrary to popular belief that the LSAT does require at least some outside information? Based on your answer. The reason I ask that is because I have often noticed that the LSAT can arbitrarily require us to use info that is not mentioned in the passage. This question per example
Nativeguy on August 22, 2023
Know outside info * sorry for typoEmil-Kunkin on August 23, 2023
It's actually a common misconception that we should forget outside info. The lsat is a test of logical reasoning, and it's impossible to have logical reasoning in a vacuum. We need to apply our common sense as people who live in the world. In this case, I think it's common sense that if someone is affirming a decision by a trial court, the speaker is likely an appellate judge. We are not allowed to use specialist knowledge (e.g. the mechanics of fingerprint id, or witch circuit court is more or less friendly to criminal defendants) but we absolutely can use common sense.