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\nLet\u2019s look at an inference practice question. What follows is the first paragraph of the passage, which is all you need (at most) to answer this inference question.
\nIt might be easy to think of the Supreme
\nCourt of the United States as a distant and
\nmechanical law-judging body, far removed from
\nthe people it serves. The career of a Supreme
\n(5)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Court Justice is, in fact, serious business, as the
\nSupreme Court heads the judicial branch of the
\nU.S. federal government and is the highest
\njudicial body in the United States. The evening
\nnews or daily paper might give us a glimpse of
\n(10)\u00a0\u00a0 some stately figure dressed in a long black robe,
\npounding a gavel on a shiny wooden desk. We
\nmight see stern-faced Supreme Court Justices
\nand think of them as the demigods of the U.S
\npolitical system, but the truth is that the nine
\n(15)\u00a0\u00a0 justices of the Supreme Court are also people,
\njust like we are, who work hard to get their jobs
\nand do the work that they know and love. The
\nhiring and retiring process, however, is unique
\nin that justices are appointed for life, and this
\n(20)\u00a0\u00a0 aspect of the Supreme Court Justice job
\ndescription has both its positive and negative
\nimpacts on the U.S. judicial system.
\n
What does the author of the passage mean when he suggests that some people might think of the Supreme Court as a “distant and mechanical law-judging body?” (lines 2-3)<\/em>
\nA. Some people incorrectly assume that the Supreme Court is an impersonal collection of individuals.<\/em>
\nB. The Supreme Court is located in a geographically remote location, far away from most American citizens<\/em>
\nC. The Supreme Court relies too much on machines to make its most important decisions.<\/em>
\nD. If we did think of the Supreme Court in this way, perhaps we would be more sympathetic with our judicial system.<\/em>
\nExplanation<\/h4><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\nOur first step, as always, is to locate the line and read a little before and after it; in this case, we can only read after the line it is part of first sentence. We are supposed to analyze the author\u2019s description of the Supreme Court as a \u201cdistant and mechanical law-judging body.\u201d If we at first have a hard time contextualizing the adjectives \u2018distant\u2019 and \u2018mechanical,\u2019 we should read a little after the sentence to understand what the author means, or rather, implies.
\nFirst, notice that the phrase in question describes how we \u201cmight\u2026think\u201d about the Supreme Court, not how we should think about it. Further, notice the author\u2019s phrase he adds to clarify the phrase in question: we might think that the Supreme Court is \u2018far removed from the people it serves.\u2019 Finally, to really understand the author\u2019s purpose in these phrases, examine how the author shapes this first paragraph. He begins the paragraph by describing different examples of how and why we \u201cmight\u201d imagine the Supreme Court: we \u201cmight\u201d imagine the Supreme Court to be a \u201cdistant and mechanical body,\u201d and we might imagine a judge to be a \u201cstately figure dressed in a long black robe\u201d or as a \u201cdemigod of the U.S. political system;\u201d ultimately, of course, the author says \u201cbut the truth is that [justices] are also people.\u201d Only now can we fully understand the implication of that initial phrase, \u201cdistant and mechanical:\u201d the author implies that many of us wrongly assume the Supreme Court to be a remote entity that mechanically (that is, impersonally) performs the deeds of our complex law system. A is our answer.
\nNotice that answers like B and C isolate the words in the phrase and interpret them literally, failing to identify the figurative meanings in the context of the paragraph. Answer choice D, while not an untrue statement, cannot be supported by the phrase in question. With inference questions, always remember to stick to the phrase, sentence, or paragraph in question.
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