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Course: LSAT > Unit 1
Lesson 10: Reading Comprehension - Worked Examples- Law passage overview | Cosmic Justice (paired passages)
- Main point | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Recognition | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Inferences about views | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Inferences about info | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Principles | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Analogies | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Law passage overview | Copyright
- Main point | Law passage | Copyright
- Purpose of reference | Law passage | Copyright
- Applying to new contexts | Law passage | Copyright
- Humanities passage overview | Music (paired passages)
- Main point 1 | Humanities passage | Music
- Main point 2 | Humanities passage | Music
- Recognition | Humanities passage | Music
- Inferences about views | Humanities passage | Music
- Principles and analogies | Humanities passage | Music
- Additional evidence | Humanities passage | Music
- Primary purpose | Humanities passage | Music
- Science passage overview | The Sun
- Recognition 1 | Science passage | The Sun
- Recognition 2 | Science passage | The Sun
- Organizing info | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about views 1 | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about views 2 | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about views 3 | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about info | Science passage | The Sun
- Social science passage overview | Wool
- Main point | Social science passage | Wool
- Recognition 1 | Social science passage | Wool
- Recognition 2 | Social science passage | Wool
- Inferences about info | Social science passage | Wool
- Inferences about attitudes | Social science passage | Wool
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Main point | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
Watch a demonstration of one way to approach a main point question about a LSAT reading comprehension law passage. Created by Dave Travis.
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- Sir, I don't think you made it clear enough that A is the answer, may you please circle it some more?(4 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] Which one of
the following pairs of titles would be most appropriate for Passage A and Passage B, respectively? This is a main idea question. Sometimes you'll see main idea questions that are in the form of, "What would be a great
title for these passages or for this singular passage?" So it helps here to have an idea of what the main idea of
each of those passages was before we look at those choices. If you remember from the passage, passage A is about defining Sowell's conception of
what cosmic justice is, in basically saying that, look we don't know enough in
order to be omniscient beings, so we should not try to
render cosmic justice. And passage B was Sowell talking about the differences between
traditional justice and cosmic justice, being
that traditional justice is all about the justice wrapped
into the process being fair so that's really what
we're looking for here. Let's look at the choices. A, Cosmic Justice meets Human Limitations. Okay, that looks pretty good. Passage B, the title would
be Fairness as Process, here we have the process
thing, versus Cosmic Fairness, so this was the traditional and cosmic was opposing the traditional. A is looking really good so choice B, Sowell's Theory of Justice. Yes, that still works for Passage A. The Key to Deterrence,
that's not the main idea of Passage B so that is not right. C, Just Deserts, presumably
meaning you get what you deserve and, again, that isn't
about the human inability to be omniscent so I'd say
that's wrong for Passage A so we can just move on. D, A Critique of Sowell. Well, no, I wouldn't say that
Passage A critiques Sowell, doesn't pick fault with Sowell's theory, it just helps to explain
what Sowell's theory is, and what his idea of cosmic justice is, so that's not right so we can move on. E, The Impossibility of
Achieving Cosmic Justice, okay, that work's for Passage A, so what about Passage B? Fair Trials versus Justice
as Impartial Process. Fair trials is part of Passage B, but are they against justice
as an impartial process? Those aren't against
each other so he's wrong, and D and C we ruled out
just from the first title. We don't even have to
look at the second title. A is clearly our best answer.