Tom: Critics of recent high court decisions claim that judges’ willingness to abide by earlier decisions is necessary to avoid legal chaos. Since high courts of the past often repudiated legal precedents and no harm to the legal politically motivated and ought to be ignored.
Mary: High courts have repudiated precedents in the past, but they were careful to do so only when the previous rulings were old and had clearly become outdated. The recently overturned rulings were themselves recent. Overturning any recent to be viewed as unstable and capricious.
What this question is testing
Your task
Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.
Common trap
Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.
Winning move
Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence gap.
Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.