Leading Questions

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: no correlation2% picked this

   The tendency of leading questions to cause unreliable courtroom testimony has no correlation with the extent to which witnesses are emotionally affected by

   The concept of how emotional states affect vulnerability to leading questions is never discussed. We'd have to find explicit support for a strong idea like "X has no correlation with Y".

   2%
2. B

   Unknown Comparison: inside/outside5% picked this

   Leading questions asked in the process of a courtroom examination of a witness are more likely to cause inaccurate testimony than are

   The first paragraph is making it seem like, "We already know it's a problem in the courtroom; that's why we disallow it. But it's also a problem when done outside the courtroom." That's the only comparison ever made. The author doesn't otherwise suggest that leading questions are more likely to have a warping effect if they're done outside vs. inside the courtroom.

   5%
3. C

   Too Strong / Contradicted: not relevant4% picked this

   The memory processes by which newly introduced data tend to reinforce accurately remembered details of events are not relevant to explaining

   The "Moreover" sentence in the middle of the 2nd paragraph says that "we tend to process new data similarly whether they correspond to details as we remember them, or to gaps in those details". Obviously if a leading question reinforces an accurate detail we already remembered, it won't have any pernicious effect on our testimony. But this question stem is saying "the memory processes at work are not relevant to explaining leading questions" and those memory processes at work are relevant --- they are the same process that leads us to add in a new fact from a leading question if there was a gap in our memory.

   4%
4. D

   Correct73% picked this

   The risk of testimony being inaccurate due to certain other factors tends to increase as an eyewitness’s susceptibility to giving inaccurate testimony due to

   Why this is right

   This answer sounds impenetrably confusing at first. Because it has a "as X increases, Y increases" volume dial type formulation, we can scan the passage looking for something that has a similar "the more this, the more that" type relationship. The first sentence of the final paragraph puts three things into a volume dial connection: the farther removed you are from the event, the more likely your memory is vague/incomplete, the more vulnerable you are to leading questions. So this answer is saying "when you're more vulnerable to the effects of leading questions, that means that your memory is also more vague/incomplete", and that latter trait (a vague/incomplete memory) is "certain other factors that can increase the risk of testimony being inaccurate". In other words, if the first sentence of the last paragraph is saying, the more X, the more Y, the more Z then this answer is saying something like Y tends to increase as Z increases.

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

   73%
5. E

   Opposite15% picked this

   The traditional grounds on which leading questions can be excluded from courtroom interrogation of witnesses have been called into question by

   If anything, the recent research reinforces that we are vulnerable to the effects of leading questions and underscores the need to disallow them in the courtroom.

   15%