Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Easy

PT145 S3 P1 Q4 Explanation

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Reading Comprehension question.

TopicsLocate DetailLaw

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Passage

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), approved by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948, was the first international treaty to expressly affirm universal respect for human rights. Prior to 1948 no truly international standard of humanitarian beliefs existed. Although Article 1 of the 1945 UN Charter had been written with this proposal and others like it were not adopted; instead, the UDHR was commissioned and drafted.

The original mandate for producing the document was given to the UN Commission on Human Rights in February 1946. Between that time and the General Assembly’s final approval of the document, the UDHR passed through an elaborate eight-stage drafting process in which it made its way through almost every level of the others the right to work, the right to rest and leisure, and the right to education.

While the UDHR is in many ways a progressive document, it also has weaknesses, the most regrettable of which is its nonbinding legal status. For all its strong language and high ideals, the UDHR remains a resolution of a purely programmatic nature. Nevertheless, the document has led, even if belatedly, to the strive, and as a call to arms in the name of humanity, justice, and freedom.

What this question is testing

Locate Detail

Your task

Pin down exactly what the question asks about the passage — a detail, the author's view, the structure, or the main point — before looking at the choices.

Common trap

Answers that restate a true detail from the passage but don't answer the specific question being asked.

Winning move

Anticipate the answer in your own words from the passage, then find the choice that matches that prediction.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
4.

According to the passage, each of the following is true of the Universal Declaration of

Answer choices

  1. Supported3% picked this

    It asserts a right to rest

    A quick CTRL + F or scan for "rest" or "leisure" and we'll see that this is said in the final sentence of the 2nd paragraph:

  2. Supported4% picked this

    It was drafted after the UN Charter

    Here, we have to cobble together a few different ideas. The UN Charter was enacted in 1945, so it must have been drafted prior to that. The UDHR was approved in 1948, and we're told in the latter half of the 1st paragraph that people were upset because they didn't think that the 1945 UN Charter went far enough in guaranteeing basic human rights. People lobbied to strengthen the human rights provisions of the Charter, but this proposal and others like it were not adopted; instead, the UDHR was commissioned and drafted. So since the UDHR was drafted in response to dissatisfaction with the UN Charter, it must have been drafted after the UN Charter.

  3. Supported5% picked this

    The UN Commission on Human Rights was charged with

    This is stated in the first sentence of the 3rd paragraph.

  4. Correct82% picked this

    It has had no practical

    Why this is right

    This is such an extreme and unlikely statement that we could probably guess this is the right answer even without reading the passage. It's rare for something to have zero practical consequences, particularly when it's something done by the UN. Sure, it might not have the practical consequences that the writers intended, but to have zero practical consequences is quite a feat of non-causality. This answer is actually contradicted in the final sentence of the passage.

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

  5. Supported6% picked this

    It was the first international treaty to explicitly affirm universal respect

    This is said in the first sentence of the passage.

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