Casting Your Answer Sheet as a ‘Ballot’ for Rejection doesn’t Work

// September 30th, 2008 // Education

What am I talking about?

This question propped up during one of my torturous LSAT review sessions:

Q: In order to avoid causing inadvertent harm to their neighbors, householders ought to evade politely or refuse to answer a stranger’s questions unless the stranger provides some proof of being a government official pursuing official inquiries, in which the questions should be answered truthfully.


In which one of the following situations does Mary act in accordance with the principle above?

An INCORRECT Answer Choice -
(D) Immigration officers, showing valid identification and asserting that they were on official business, asked Mary whether a neighbor who belonged to a local church that offered sanctuary to refugees lacking visas had sheltered any such refugees. Mary gave an evasive answer and warned her neighbor.

I wonder how a student who has undergone the experience of la migra showing up at her or his doorstep, or taking and deporting her/his family or friends would react to this answer choice and even question. Not positively for sure. It’s an answer choice that should have been avoided given the current climate — The LSAT is smart about these things at most times; heck, they even use gender neutral names (of course there have been times I have had to cringe and just assume that Sheila is a biological woman), but there are an overwhelming number of pro-environment, pro-diversity, even anti-government passages so this one came as a shocker. Anyway, mad props to Mary!

My hands were TWITCHING to pick this answer choice just to record my objection. Of course, on the real test, that means missing a point. Is it worth it? Have you ever picked a wrong answer knowingly as a conscientious objector?

Yeah, alright, I am going back to studying.

“In a mad world, only the mad are sane” – Akira Kurosawa.

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2 Responses to “Casting Your Answer Sheet as a ‘Ballot’ for Rejection doesn’t Work”

  1. yave begnet says:
    October 1, 2008 at 5:18 pm

    I don’t think the test writers necessarily endorsed the principle expressed, they just asked which of the answers were consistent with this admittedly shitty principle.

    Mary, if she is a decent human being, would not act in accordance with the principle. Instead, hopefully Mary would pick up the phone and call her local Rapid Response Network to alert the whole neighborhood that ICE is on the loose, then 10-15 neighbors would spontaneously gather to protest their asses out of town.

    Also, I think the test writers need an update on the way ICE actually operates. Here is a proposed, more realistic version:

    (D) Immigration officers, showing no identification and initially claiming to be (i) the mailman, (ii) the local police checking for a stray animal, or (iii) the landlord, then lost patience and kicked the door in, rushing in with weapons drawn, yelling at Mary and her young children to lie face down on the floor. Mary protested that she was a naturalized citizen and all her children were born in the U.S., but the immigration officers weren’t taking the word of a Mexican on matters of state security, so they put the whole family in cuffs and took them downtown to be processed, where they were kept without food or bathroom breaks for 12 hours until relevant documentation could be located. Mary decided never to vote for a Republican again.

    Reply
  2. Prerna says:
    October 2, 2008 at 1:55 pm

    Haha, brilliant Yave!

    I was doing the test under timed conditions at home and came to the answer choice, just stopped and frowned. It can certainly throw you off to read stuff like that but you just need to focus and keep moving.

    Then there are questions that are extremely hilarious concluding in … “you do not have to be born in a test tube to be an extension of someone elses ego” which generally has me in giggle fits. I even remember it verbatim!! It started me on a ball of wrong answers Lol. If the answer choice you wrote was on the test, I would probably be thrown out of the room … LOL :)

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