Reading Comprehension

PT131 · S4 · P2 · Q15 Statutory Law

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A proficiency in understanding, applying, and even formulating statutes—the actual texts of laws enacted by legislative bodies—is a vital aspect of the practice of law, but statutory law is often given too little attention by law schools.

Topic

Statutory law and why law schools should emphasize it more in legal education.

Framework

Challenge Position (the author pushes back against the way most law schools under-emphasize statutory law)

Main Point

Law schools focus too much on judicial decisions and case analysis, often neglecting statutory law, but developing skills related to statutes is essential for legal practice, making statutory law a crucial part of legal education even if statutes differ regionally. (The Most Valuable Sentence for the main point appears at the end of the first paragraph and is fleshed out in the final sentence of the passage.)

P1: Law School’s Emphasis on Judicial Decisions

Many law schools tend to focus their teaching on analyzing past court cases, which can give students the wrong impression that legal practice is mostly about interpreting case law rather than directly using or understanding statutes (laws written by legislatures).

P2: The Importance of Statutes in Legal Practice

In real legal work, lawyers often need to consult statutes directly to answer clients’ questions, and while sometimes using statutes is straightforward, accurately interpreting them when things aren’t clear is a vital legal skill.

P3: Teaching Statutory Law Develops Synthesis Skills

Teaching statutory law helps students become better at seeing how different laws fit together as a whole, rather than just analyzing one case at a time—a valuable ability, especially since most law students eventually specialize.

15.

Each of the following conforms to the kinds of educational results that the author would expect from the course of action proposed in the passage EXCEPT:

Correct
skill in locating references to
Why this is right
Because this answer is talking about finding previous cases to cite as precedent, this answer sounds more like the status quo, in which the education is focused mainly on what cases can tell us. But more importantly, we just don't have a line reference saying that an education in statutory law would speed up our ability to locate references.
Skill tested: Application · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
46% picked this
an understanding of the ways
Conforms
This matches the sense of "you can apply your understanding of the internal logic and coherence of this body of statutes to some other field you encounter in your study or practice". It reinforces language from some of the author's promises: - helps us judge whether a statute is applicable to a client, in tricky circumstances - helps us with synthesis (understand interrelations among laws) - helps us see how all laws within a legal system form a coherent whole - helps us apply / transfer this understanding to other statutory legal systems.
3% picked this
a knowledge of how maritime
Conforms
This doesn't match any of the author's explicit promises, but the first sentence of the passage implies that if statutory law were studied more by law schools, students would develop ... a proficiency in understanding, applying, and even formulating statutes. There is also the chance that such an education would zoom in on maritime law, as an exemplar of a statutory body of laws (3rd paragraph): the study of all the statutes of a legal system in a certain small area of the law would enable the student to see how these laws form a coherent whole. I don't love this answer, because specific knowledge about maritime statutes certainly doesn't seem like a given. The author is clearly saying that a student who receives a better statutory law education would have the capacity to understand how maritime statues are formulated, but the author isn't necessarily expecting maritime law to be covered. However, the question stem isn't saying the author expects this result, just this kind of result.
16% picked this
familiarity with the specific wordings
Conforms
The author expects that students subjected to more rigorous statutory law education would become more masterful about interpreting the language of statutes (end of P2), which is why "familiarity with specific wordings" seems like the type of educational result the author would expect. At the beginning of the final paragraph, the author anticipates an objection -- "Won't it be dumb that students are just learning the statues of a given region, given that statutes vary from region to region?" The author concedes, "Yes, statutes vary and they would only be getting knowledge of a particular region's statutory law. While the knowledge of that law wouldn't transfer to another region, the skills of how to master a new set of statutes would transfer." In other words, this answer represents an educational result of studying statutory law, even though the result the author really cares about is "how to master any set of statutes", rather than "familiarity with a particular region's". But this still conforms to the author's expectations. The question stem isn't asking for which educational results the author most highly values. Just which ones are expected.
7% picked this
an appreciation of the problems
Conforms
This is a blend of (C) and (D). You have the "certain small area of the law" (maritime, environmental, antiterrorism) as well as better understanding / proficiency / appreciation / knowledge of the intricacies of that body of law (how it was formulated or drafted / what specific wordings or problems with wordings arise). Ultimately, the 4 conforming answers are just a fuzzy way of expressing, "Look this person is knowledgeable of statutes, sensitive to nuances, able to apply that knowledge to other bodies of statutes". The wrong answer is focused on, "Look this person is better able to research court cases."
27% picked this

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