Distinguishing Fact and Opinion Flashcards
7 cards from real LNAT practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Distinguishing Fact and Opinion flashcards as text
A passage states: 'It is a fact that capital punishment is immoral.' What is wrong with calling this a fact?
Answer: Morality is a value judgment, so this is an opinion regardless of how it is framed
Moral claims are inherently evaluative and cannot be empirically verified, so framing a moral position as a 'fact' is a misclassification.
Which of the following pairs correctly matches each statement to its type?
Answer: 'The law is unjust' = Opinion; 'The jury acquitted the defendant' = Fact
A jury verdict is a recorded legal event (fact), while a judgment that the law is unjust is an evaluative position (opinion).
A political science paper says: 'Democracies with proportional representation tend to have stronger civil liberties protections.' This is:
Answer: Fact, if the claim reflects documented research findings
A claim based on documented comparative research is a factual statement; the existence of a trend in data can be empirically verified.
In an LNAT passage, an author uses the phrase 'needless to say' before a claim. This phrasing suggests the following claim is likely:
Answer: An opinion being presented as if it were self-evident
'Needless to say' is a rhetorical device that presupposes agreement, often used to slip opinions past the reader as though they were obvious truths.
A judge writes in a ruling: 'In the court's view, the evidence is insufficient to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt.' This statement is:
Answer: An opinion of the court, explicitly framed as such
The phrase 'in the court's view' signals that this is an institutional judgment — a form of opinion — even though it has binding legal force.
Which question is most useful when trying to determine whether a statement in an LNAT passage is fact or opinion?
Answer: Can this claim be proven true or false through evidence?
The core test of a factual claim is whether it is empirically verifiable or falsifiable; the source, publication venue, or language style are irrelevant to this classification.
A student writes: 'The US has more lawyers per capita than any other nation, proving that its legal system is overly litigious.' The word 'proving' here:
Answer: Incorrectly implies that a factual statistic establishes a value-laden opinion
'Overly litigious' is a value judgment that a statistic alone cannot prove; the student conflates factual data with an evaluative interpretation.