The previous example covers your most typical question types.  But one question per passage usually looks at the passage as a whole.  I’ll show you how I handle those kinds of questions using the same passage as in the last post.  The question is framed here as “Which one of the following most accurately states the main idea of the passage?”

For this question, I start out by reading (some of) the first sentences of each paragraph.  I don’t need to read the whole sentence, necessarily, just enough to get the structure of the passage.  There are four paragraphs:

1. “Intellectual authority is defined as the authority of arguments….”
2. “In contrast, some critics maintain that whatever authority judicial pronouncements have is exclusively institutional.”
3. “But, the critics might respond, intellectual authority is only recognized as such because of institutional consensus.”
4. “The analogous legal concept is the doctrine of precedent, i.e., a judge’s merely deciding a case a certain way becoming a basis for deciding later cases the same way — a pure example of institutional authority.”

This passage is interesting because we get a lot of what the critics say, and not so much what the main argument is (though we can infer it is a pro-intellectual authority argument).

When I go to the answer choices, I notice something interesting: they all start out one of two ways

Although some argue that the authority of the legal system is purely intellectual/institutional….

While it is clear that either one is literally true, since there is disagreement over a dichotomy, we have to consider the point of view of the author.  Which side is the “some argue” on?  Well, it is the critics, of course!  And they are big believers in institutional authority.  See that?  Once we decide that, we can eliminate A/C/E without further consideration.

Then we have to pick between the final two choices, and here, because we got so much of the critics view to begin with, it is helpful to read the very last sentence:

The conflict between intellectual and institutional authority in legal systems is thus played out in the reconsideration of decisions, leading one to draw the conclusion that legal systems contain a significant degree of intellectual authority even if the thrust of their power is predominantly institutional.

Adding that sentence to our arsenal makes the choice between the last two answers clear:

Although some argue that the authority of the legal system is purely institutional, these systems possess a degree of intellectual authority due to their ability to reconsider badly reasoned or socially inappropriate judicial decisions.

It’s all about the “reconsideration of decisions,” baby!