By the time Bentham turned his interest to the subject, late in the eighteenth century, most components of modern evidence law had been assembled. Among common-law doctrines regarding evidence there were, however, principles that today are regarded as bizarre; thus, a well-established (but now abandoned) rule forbade the parties to a case from testifying. Well into the nineteenth century, even defendants in criminal cases were denied the right to testify to facts that would prove their innocence.
Although extreme in its irrationality, this proscription was in other respects quite typical of the law of evidence. Much of that law consisted of rules excluding relevant evidence, usually on some rational grounds. Hearsay evidence was generally excluded because absent persons could not be cross-examined. Yet such evidence was mechanically excluded even where out-of-court statements were both relevant and reliable, but the absent persons could not appear in court (for example, because they were dead).
The morass of evidentiary technicalities often made it unlikely that the truth would emerge in a judicial contest, no matter how expensive and protracted. Reform was frustrated both by the vested interests of lawyers and by the profession's reverence for tradition and precedent. Bentham's prescription was revolutionary: virtually all evidence tending to prove or disprove the issue in dispute should be admissible. Narrow exceptions were envisioned: instances in which the trouble or expense of presenting or considering proof outweighed its value, confessions to a Catholic priest, and a few other instances.
One difficulty with Bentham's nonexclusion principle is that some kinds of evidence are inherently unreliable or misleading. Such was the argument underlying the exclusions of interested-party testimony and hearsay evidence. Bentham argued that the character of evidence should be weighed by the jury: the alternative was to prefer ignorance to knowledge. Yet some evidence, although relevant, is actually more likely to produce a false jury verdict than a true one. To use a modern example, evidence of a defendant's past bank robberies is excluded, since the prejudicial character of the evidence substantially outweighs its value in helping the jury decide correctly. Further, in granting exclusions such as sacramental confessions, Bentham conceded that competing social interests or values might override the desire for relevant evidence. But then, why not protect conversations between social workers and their clients, or parents and children?
Despite concerns such as these, the approach underlying modem evidence law began to prevail soon after Bentham's death: relevant evidence should be admitted unless there are clear grounds of policy for excluding it. This clear-grounds proviso allows more exclusions than Bentham would have liked, but the main thrust of the current outlook is Bentham's own nonexclusion principle, demoted from a rule to a presumption.
The author mentions "conversations between social workers and their clients" most probably in order to
A. suggest a situation in which application of the nonexclusion principle may be questionablePassage
The Marshmallow Test for Grownups
(1)
Originally conducted by psychologist Walter Mischel in the late 1960s, the Stanford marshmallow test has become a touchstone of developmental psychology. Children at Stanford's Bing Nursery School, aged four to six, were placed in a
room furnished only with a table and chair. A single treat, selected by the child, was placed on the table. Each child was told if they waited for 15 minutes before eating the treat, they would be given a second treat. Then they were left alone in
the room. Follow-up studies with the children later in adolescence showed a correlation between an ability to wait long enough to obtain a second treat and various forms of life success. And a 2011 fMRI study conducted on 59 original
participants ?now in their 40s ?by Cornell's B.J. Casey showed higher levels of brain activity in the prefrontal cortex among those participants who delayed immediate gratification in favor of a greater reward later on. This finding is important
because of the research that's emerged on the critical role played by the prefrontal cortex in directing our attention and managing our emotions.
(2)
As adults, we face a version of the marshmallow test nearly every waking minute of every day. We're not tempted by sugary treats, but by our browser tabs, phones, and tablets ?all the devices that connect us to the global delivery system for
those blips of information that do to us what marshmallows do to preschoolers.
(3)
Sugary treats tempt us into unhealthy eating habits because the agricultural and commercial systems that meet our nutritional needs today are so vastly different from the environment in which we evolved as a species. Early humans lived in a
calorie-poor world, and something like a piece of fruit was both rare and valuable. Our brains developed a response mechanism to these treats that reflected their value ?a surge of interest and excitement, a feeling of reward and
satisfaction ?which we find tremendously pleasurable. But as we've reshaped the world around us, radically diminishing the cost and effort involved in obtaining calories, we still have the same brains we evolved thousands of years ago. This
mismatch is at the heart of why so many of us struggle to resist tempting foods that we know we shouldn't eat.
(4)
A similar process is at work in our response to information. Our formative environment as a species was information-poor as well as calorie-poor. The features of that environment ?specifically the members of our immediate community and
our interactions with them ?typically changed rarely and gradually. New information in the form of new community members or new ways of interacting were unusual and notable events that typically signified something of great importance.
Just as our brains developed a response mechanism that prized sugary treats, we evolved to pay close attention to new information about the people around us and our interactions with them. But just as the development of industrial
agriculture and mass commerce has profoundly altered our caloric environment, global connectivity has profoundly altered our information environment. We are now ceaselessly bombarded with new information about the people around us ?
and the definition of "people around us" has fundamentally changed, putting us in touch with more people in an hour than early humans met in their entire lives. All of this poses a critical challenge to our brains ?the adult version of the
marshmallow test.
(5)
Not only are we constantly interrupted by alerts, beeps, and buzzes that tell us some new information has arrived, we constantly interrupt ourselves to seek out new information. We pull out our phones while we're in the middle of a
conversation with someone. We check our email while we're engaged in a complex task that requires our full concentration. We scan our feeds even though we just checked them a minute ago. There's increasing evidence suggesting that
these disruptions make it difficult to do our best work, diminish our productivity, and contribute to a feeling of overwhelm.
(6)
The agricultural and commercial revolutions were clearly net gains for humanity, making it possible for more people to live better lives than ever before. It would be both wrongheaded and fruitless to suggest that we should turn back the clock
on these advances. Similarly, the information revolution is helping us to make great strides as a species. But just as we need to be more thoughtful about our caloric consumption, delaying gratification of our impulsive urges in order to eat
more nutritiously, we need to be more thoughtful about our information consumption, resisting the allure of the mental equivalent of "junk food" in order to allocate our time and attention most effectively. (This article has been picked from
hbr.org and has been edited for use.)
The author mentions "browser tabs, phones, and tablets" in paragraph 2 most probably in order to
A. demonstrate the ubiquity of these devicesOn each of exactly seven consecutive days (day 1 through day 7), a pet shop features exactly one of three breeds of kitten -- Himalayan, Manx, Siamese -- and exactly one of three breeds of puppy -- Greyhound, Newfoundland, Rottweiler.
The following conditions must apply:
Greyhounds are featured on day 1.
No breed is featured on any two consecutive days.
Any breed featured on day 1 is not featured on day 7.
Himalayans are featured on exactly three days, but not on day 1.
Rottweilers are not featured on day 7, nor on any day that features Himalayans.
If Himalayans are not featured on day 7, then which one of the following pairs of days CANNOT feature both the same breed of kitten and the same breed of puppy?
A. day 1 and day 3A music store carries exactly ten types of CDs -- both new and used of each of jazz, opera, pop, rap, and soul. The store is having a sale on some of these types of CDs. The following conditions must apply:
Used pop is on sale; new opera is not.
If both types of pop are on sale, then all soul is.
If both types of jazz are on sale, then no rap is.
If neither type of jazz is on sale, then new pop is.
If either type of rap is on sale, then no soul is.
If neither type of jazz is on sale, then each of the following must be true EXCEPT:
A. Used opera is on sale.Scientists have long known that the soft surface of the bill of the platypus is perforated with openings that contain sensitive nerve endings. Only recently, however, have biologists concluded on the basis of new evidence that the animal uses its bill to locate its prey while underwater, a conclusion suggested by the fact that the animal's eyes, ears, and nostrils are sealed when it is submerged. The new evidence comes from neurophysiological studies, which have recently revealed that within the pores on the bill there are two kinds of sensory receptors: mechanoreceptors, which are tiny pushrods that respond to tactile pressure, and electroreceptors, which respond to weak electrical fields. Having discovered that tactile stimulation of the pushrods sends nerve impulses to the brain, where they evoke an electric potential over an area of the neocortex much larger than the one stimulated by input from the limbs, eyes, and ears, Bohringer concluded that the bill must be the primary sensory organ for the platypus. Her finding was supported by studies showing that the bill is extraordinarily sensitive to tactile stimulation: stimulation with a fine glass stylus sent a signal by way of the fifth cranial nerve to the neocortex and from there to the motor cortex. Presumably nerve impulses from the motor cortex then induced a snapping movement of the bill. But Bohringer's investigations did not explain how the animal locates its prey at a distance.
Scheich's neurophysiological studies contribute to solving this mystery. His initial work showed that when a platypus feeds, it swims along, steadily wagging its bill from side to side until prey is encountered. It thereupon switches to searching behavior, characterized by erratic movements of the bill over a small area at the bottom of a body of water, which is followed by homing in on the object and seizing it. In order to determine how the animal senses prey and then distinguishes it from other objects on the bottom, Scheich hypothesized that a sensory system based on electroreception similar to that found in sharks might exist in the platypus. In further experiments he found he could trigger the switch from patrolling to searching behavior in the platypus by creating a dipole electric field in the water with the aid of a small 1.5-volt battery. The platypus, sensitive to the weak electric current that was created, rapidly oriented toward the battery at a distance of 10 centimeters and sometimes as much as 30 centimeters. Once the battery was detected, the platypus would inevitably attack it as if it were food. Scheich then discovered that the tail flicks of freshwater shrimp, a common prey of the platypus, also produce weak electric fields and elicit an identical response. Scheich and his colleagues believe that it is reasonable to assume that all the invertebrates on which the platypus feed must produce electric fields.
The primary purpose of the passage is to
A. explain how the platypus locates prey at a distanceWhile traveling to Japan, a low-ranking US ambassador asked a Japanese official why Japanese people were so inscrutable. The official looked calm and friendly, responding in a gentle voice that he much preferred to think upon his race as inscrutable than of his race as wanting in perspicacity such as in Americans.
Of the following statements, which best describes the Japanese official's comment?
A. All people are inscrutable, not just the JapaneseTony: A new kind of videocassette has just been developed. It lasts for only half as many vie wings as the old kind does but costs a third as much. Therefore, video rental stores would find it significantly more economical to purchase and
stock movies recorded on the new kind of videocassette than on the old kind.
Anna: But the videocassette itself only accounts for 5 percent of the price a video rental store pays to buy a copy of a movie on video; most of the price consists of royalties the store pays to the studio that produced the movie. So the price that
video rental stores pay per copy would decrease by considerably less than 5 percent, and royalties would have to be paid on additional copies.
Which one of the following, if true, would contribute most to a defense of Tony's position against Anna's reply?
A. The price that video rental stores pay for movies recorded on videocassettes is considerably less than the retail price of those movies.Experts anticipate that global atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) will have-doubled by the end of the twenty-first century. It is known that CO2 can contribute to global warming by trapping solar energy that is being reradiated as heat from the Earth's surface. However, some research has suggested that elevated CO2 levels could enhance the photosynthetic rates of plants, resulting in a lush world of agricultural abundance, and that this CO2 fertilization effect might eventually decrease the rate of global warming. The increased vegetation in such an environment could be counted on to draw more CO, from the atmosphere. The level of CO2 would thus increase at a lower rate than many experts have predicted.
However, while a number of recent studies confirm that plant growth would be generally enhanced in an atmosphere rich in CO2, they also suggest that increased CO2 would differentially increase the growth rate of different species of plants, which could eventually result in decreased agricultural yields. Certain important crops such as corn and sugarcane that currently have higher photosynthetic efficiencies than other plants may lose that edge in an atmosphere rich in CO2. Patterson and Flint have shown that these important crops may experience yield reductions because of the increased performance of certain weeds. Such differences in growth rates between plant species could also alter ecosystem stability. Studies have shown that within rangeland regions, for example, a weedy grass grows much better with plentiful CO2 than do three other grasses. Because this weedy grass predisposes land to burning, its potential increase may lead to greater numbers of and more severe wildfires in future rangeland communities.
It is clear that the CO2 fertilization effect does not guarantee the lush world of agricultural abundance that once seemed likely, but what about the potential for the increased uptake of CO2 to decrease the rate of global warming? Some studies suggest that the changes accompanying global warming will not improve the ability of terrestrial ecosystems to absorb CO2. Billings' simulation of global warming conditions in wet tundra grasslands showed that the level of CO2 actually increased. Plant growth did increase under these conditions because of warmer temperatures and increased CO2 levels. But as the permafrost melted, more peat {accumulated dead plant material) began to decompose. This process in turn liberated more CO2 to the atmosphere. Billings estimated that if summer temperatures rose four degrees Celsius, the tundra would liberate 50 percent more CO2 than it does currently. In a warmer world, increased plant growth, which could absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, would not compensate for this rapid increase in decomposition rates. This observation is particularly important because high-latitude habitats such as the tundra are expected to experience the greatest temperature increase.
The passage supports which one of the following statements about peat in wet tundra grasslands?
A. More of it would decompose if temperatures rose four degrees Celsius.Ethicist: Some would ban cloning on the grounds that clones would be subpeople, existing to indulge the vanity of their "originals." It is not illegal, however, to use one person as a vehicle for the ambitions of another. Some people push their children to achieve in academics or athletics. You do not have to have been born in a test tube to be an extension of someone else's ego.
The assertion that it is not illegal to use one person as a vehicle for another's ambitions is used in the ethicist's argument in which one of the following ways?
A. It supports the ethicist's view that society does not value individuality as much as many opponents of cloning think it does.The first person in the group starts off by naming anything that is geographical. It could be a city, state, country, river, lake, or any proper geographical term. For example, the person might say," Boston." The second person has ten seconds to think of how the word ends and come up with another geographical term starting with that letter. The second participant might say, "Norway," since the geographical term has to start with "N." The third person would have to choose a word beginning with "Y." If a player fails to think of a correct answer within the time limit, that player is out of the game. The last person to survive is the champion.
The person trying to answer needs
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