Leading questions—questions worded in such a way as to suggest a parti

Leading questions—questions worded in such a
way as to suggest a particular answer—can yield
unreliable testimony either by design, as when a lawyer
tries to trick a witness into affirming a particular
(5) version of the evidence of a case, or by accident, when
a questioner unintentionally prejudices the witness’s
response. For this reason, a judge can disallow such
questions in the courtroom interrogation of witnesses.
But their exclusion from the courtroom by no means
(10) eliminates the remote effects of earlier leading
questions on eyewitness testimony. Alarmingly, the
beliefs about an event that a witness brings to the
courtroom may often be adulterated by the effects of
leading questions that were introduced intentionally or
(15) unintentionally by lawyers, police investigators,
reporters, or others with whom the witness has already
interacted.

Recent studies have confirmed the ability of
leading questions to alter the details of our memories
(20) and have led to a better understanding of how this
process occurs and, perhaps, of the conditions that
make for greater risks that an eyewitness’s memories
have been tainted by leading questions. These studies
suggest that not all details of our experiences become
(25) clearly or stably stored in memory—only those to
which we give adequate attention. Moreover,
experimental evidence indicates that if subtly
introduced new data involving remembered events do
not actively conflict with our stored memory data, we
(30) tend to process such new data similarly whether they
correspond to details as we remember them, or to gaps
in those details. In the former case, we often retain the
new data as a reinforcement of the corresponding
aspect of the memory, and in the latter case, we often
(35) retain them as a construction to fill the corresponding
gap. An eyewitness who is asked, prior to courtroom
testimony, “How fast was the car going when it passed
the stop sign?” may respond to the query about speed
without addressing the question of the stop sign. But
(40) the “stop sign” datum has now been introduced, and
when later recalled, perhaps during courtroom
testimony, it may be processed as belonging to the
original memory even if the witness actually saw no
stop sign.

(45) The farther removed from the event, the greater the
chance of a vague or incomplete recollection and the
greater the likelihood of newly suggested information
blending with original memories. Since we can be
more easily misled with respect to fainter and more
(50) uncertain memories, tangential details are more apt to
become constructed out of subsequently introduced
information than are more central details. But what is
tangential to a witness’s original experience of an event
may nevertheless be crucial to the courtroom issues
(55) that the witness’s memories are supposed to resolve.
For example, a perpetrator’s shirt color or hairstyle
might be tangential to one’s shocked observance of an
armed robbery, but later those factors might be crucial
to establishing the identity of the perpetrator.

1. Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

(A) The unreliability of memories about incidental aspects of observed events makes eyewitness testimony especially questionable in cases in which the witness was not directly involved.
(B) Because of the nature of human memory storage and retrieval, the courtroom testimony of eyewitnesses may contain crucial inaccuracies due to leading questions asked prior to the courtroom appearance.
(C) Researchers are surprised to find that courtroom testimony is often dependent on suggestion to fill gaps left by insufficient attention to detail at the time that the incident in question occurred.
(D) Although judges can disallow leading questions from the courtroom, it is virtually impossible to prevent them from being used elsewhere, to the detriment of many cases.
(E) Stricter regulation should be placed on lawyers whose leading questions can corrupt witnesses’ testimony by introducing inaccurate data prior to the witnesses’ appearance in the courtroom.


2. It can be reasonably inferred from the passage that which one of the following, if it were effectively implemented, would most increase the justice system’s ability to prevent leading questions from causing mistaken court decisions?

(A) a policy ensuring that witnesses have extra time to answer questions concerning details that are tangential to their original experiences of events
(B) thorough revision of the criteria for determining which kinds of interrogation may be disallowed in courtroom testimony under the category of “leading questions”
(C) increased attention to the nuances of all witnesses’ responses to courtroom questions, even those that are not leading questions
(D) extensive interviewing of witnesses by all lawyers for both sides of a case prior to those witnesses’ courtroom appearance
(E) availability of accurate transcripts of all interrogations of witnesses that occurred prior to those witnesses’ appearance in court


3. Which one of the following is mentioned in the passage as a way in which new data suggested to a witness by a leading question are sometimes processed?

(A) They are integrated with current memories as support for those memories.
(B) They are stored tentatively as conjectural data that fade with time.
(C) They stay more vivid in memory than do previously stored memory data.
(D) They are reinterpreted so as to be compatible with the details already stored in memory.
(E) They are retained in memory even when they conflict with previously stored memory data.


23. In discussing the tangential details of events, the passage contrasts their original significance to witnesses with their possible significance in the courtroom (lines 52–59). That contrast is most closely analogous to which one of the following?

(A) For purposes of flavor and preservation, salt and vinegar are important additions to cucumbers during the process of pickling, but these purposes could be attained by adding other ingredients instead.
(B) For the purpose of adding a mild stimulant effect, caffeine is included in some types of carbonated drinks, but for the purposes of appealing to health-conscious consumers, some types of carbonated drinks are advertised as being caffeine-free.
(C) For purposes of flavor and tenderness, the skins of apples and some other fruits are removed during preparation for drying, but grape skins are an essential part of raisins, and thus grape skins are not removed.
(D) For purposes of flavor and appearance, wheat germ is not needed in flour and is usually removed during milling, but for purposes of nutrition, the germ is an important part of the grain.
(E) For purposes of texture and appearance, some fat may be removed from meat when it is ground into sausage, but the removal of fat is also important for purposes of health.


5. Which one of the following questions is most directly answered by information in the passage?

(A) In witnessing what types of crimes are people especially likely to pay close attention to circumstantial details?
(B) Which aspects of courtroom interrogation cause witnesses to be especially reluctant to testify in extensive detail?
(C) Can the stress of having to testify in a courtroom situation affect the accuracy of memory storage and retrieval?
(D) Do different people tend to possess different capacities for remembering details accurately?
(E) When is it more likely that a detail of an observed event will be accurately remembered?


6. The second paragraph consists primarily of material that

(A) corroborates and adds detail to a claim made in the first paragraph
(B) provides examples illustrating the applications of a theory discussed in the first paragraph
(C) forms an argument in support of a proposal that is made in the final paragraph
(D) anticipates and provides grounds for the rejection of a theory alluded to by the author in the final paragraph
(E) explains how newly obtained data favor one of two traditional theories mentioned elsewhere in the second paragraph


7. It can be most reasonably inferred from the passage that the author holds that the recent studies discussed in the passage

(A) have produced some unexpected findings regarding the extent of human reliance on external verification of memory details
(B) shed new light on a longstanding procedural controversy in the law
(C) may be of theoretical interest despite their tentative nature and inconclusive findings
(D) provide insights into the origins of several disparate types of logically fallacious reasoning
(E) should be of more than abstract academic interest to the legal profession


8. Which one of the following can be most reasonably inferred from the information in the passage?

(A) The tendency of leading questions to cause unreliable courtroom testimony has no correlation with the extent to which witnesses are emotionally affected by the events that they have observed.

(B) Leading questions asked in the process of a courtroom examination of a witness are more likely to cause inaccurate testimony than are leading questions asked outside the courtroom.
(C) The memory processes by which newly introduced data tend to reinforce accurately remembered details of events are not relevant to explaining the effects of leading questions.
(D) The risk of testimony being inaccurate due to certain other factors tends to increase as an eyewitness’s susceptibility to giving inaccurate testimony due to the effects of leading questions increases.
(E) The traditional grounds on which leading questions can be excluded from courtroom interrogation of witnesses have been called into question by the findings of recent studies.