PT 48, Section 3 #17 Forum

[2014]

I get why A, C, and E are wrong in that they are compelling reasons to rule in favor of the museum. When evaluating the last two though, I don't understand why the correct answer ends up being D.

If the museum couldn't produce written claim to ownership, then wouldn't that be a circumstance where the court was unlikely to rule in the museum's favor?

Is it a matter of the question including the word "increasingly" which is supposed to lead you to choose D on the grounds that communal rights are increasing? Or am I missing something?

[fosterp]

I think you may be reading the question wrong. Its basically asking which one is a reason could have been used in the past as deciding in the museums favor, but now, given the circumstances developing in the passage, is no longer a good enough reason.

From the way the question is worded the "increasingly unlikely" means that it would be a reason that once may have been a reason to rule in the museums favor but then has been phased out over time as a "valid reason" due to circumstances developed in the passage. The passage develops the idea of "communal property" in which property does belong to a group of native canadians yet the concept of communal property does not include written documentation of such property. As the passage indicates, courts will "gradually recognize that native canadians....can clearly claim ownership as prescribed by the notion of collective property."

C is wrong because it doesn't properly address the question at hand. C would have never been used to decide in the museums favor ever, and as such it does not produce the "increasingly unlikely" requirement that the question asks for.

[2014]

My apologies for the typo, I actually knew why C was wrong, it was B that I put. B seems to me as a great answer given that it is a reason that the courts would have to rule against the museums (Which should be equivalent to being unlikely to rule in its favor). The only reason I can see B being wrong is that "increasingly" is thrown in and you could make the argument that D would increase with the growing acceptance of communal rights.

I still don't understand why that makes B wrong or even worse though.

[yoojin0319]

If the museum could not document (B)
its own claims, the court would never have been likely
to rule in its favor.

[2014]

So it pretty much comes down to "increasingly" being a fundamental word in the prompt that I missed. I'll have to read more carefully in the future