The author's attitude towards the reasoning offered in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Shelley v. Kraemer is mos...

Irina on November 23, 2019

@Aley,

That's right - the question is essentially asking which phrase best reflects the author's attitude toward the SCOTUS's reasoning in the Shelley case. Looking at the overall tone used to discuss the case, we can tell that the author disagrees with the Court's reasoning - "attribution logic threatened to dissolve.." "neither the Supreme Court nor lower courts late applied Shelley's approach..." We can thus eliminate any phrases that indicate an approval - (B), (C), and (D). (A) is better suited to describe the outcome of the Shelley's case rather than the author's attitude, whereas (E) "noxious aspect" accurately describes the author's position as he implies that he finds the reasoning in that case harmful.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Annie on November 23, 2019

Hi @Aley,

Yes, this question essentially is asking what the author of the passage thinks about Shelley v. Kraemer. The references in the text definitely matter for answering this type of question, as you'll need to identify the language in the passage which matches the author's view. These phrases need to be viewed in context to understand their true meaning, so its important to look at them in relation to the rest of the passage.

Answer Choices:
(A) is incorrect. This phrase is used to refer to the holding of Shelley v. Kraemer at the beginning of the passage. Once you read through the passage you note though that the author is not a fan of this famous holding. Additionally, it becomes clear that this does not reflect the author's distaste for the opinion.

(B) is incorrect. The author does not think this opinion should be celebrated.

(C) is incorrect. The author does not think this opinion is necessarily legal (see lines 35-53).

(D) is incorrect. The author tells us that, after this opinion came out, courts had to avoid applying the approach in Shelley. (lines 40-46)

(E) is correct. This phrase reflects the authors extreme dislike of Shelley v. Kraemer.