Jury Impartiality

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope: appropriate facts1% picked this

   determine which facts are appropriate for juries

   Nothing in our available sentences is talking about which facts are appropriate for juries to hear. And how on Earth would mass media exposure determine which facts are appropriate? Does that mean that the lawyers would think, "It's inappropriate to repeat any facts during this trial that juries would have already heard about through mass media exposure"? That doesn't sound like anything we read.

   1%
2. B

   Opposite, if anything8% picked this

   improve the ability of jurors to minimize

   This is somewhat tempting, because the passage is saying that mass media exposure could improve the ability of juries to achieve impartiality (as the author is redefining it). But the author is never saying that an individual juror, by being exposed to mass media, is better able to be unbiased (impartial) on a personal level. She thinks that these exposed jurors will be opinionated people, which doesn't quite mean biased in the harshest sense of the word, but it does mean they are not blank slates.

   8%
3. C

   Correct70% picked this

   strengthen the process by which juries come

   Why this is right

   We were looking for something like, "the benefit of exposure is that it helps a jury with its goal of impartiality". Impartiality (as the author defines it) = composed of citizens representative of the community's collective experience, which includes exposure to mass media. This answer choice is taking our prediction, "Helps a jury with its goal of impartiality" and swapping out "its goal of impartiality" with the way that goal is described in the final sentence of the passage: impartiality results from a process of deliberation among members of a panel of informed, curious, and even opinionated people. If mass exposure leads to people being more informed and opinionated, and the process of deliberation (how juries come to decisions) is meant to include a panel of informed/opinionated people, then we can say that mass exposure helps with the process by which juries deliberate a case. Tough answer, though. Definitely a "best available" last resort.

   Skill tested: Inference · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

   70%
4. D

   Out of Scope: methods of questioning10% picked this

   change the methods judges use to question

   Nothing in these final sentences is saying that one benefit of mass exposure is that it's changing the methods that judges use when questioning potential jurors.

   10%
5. E

   Out of Scope: awareness of bias11% picked this

   increase potential jurors’ awareness of their degree

   Nothing in those last few sentences matches up with awareness of personal bias. We know that the author thinks that mass exposure is helping a jury to be "truly impartial", but the author is redefining what she means by impartial. She isn't using the classical definition of "having no opinion, unbiased, blank slate". She's saying impartial just means "a group of average folk". She thinks that we can trust impartiality will result from the process of a panel of informed / curious / even biased people deliberating a case together. She isn't saying that by being exposed to mass media, individual jurors self-reflect and better see their own degree of bias.

   11%