"Litigiousness" is the habit of taking conflicts and disputes to court, when they could probably be settled fairly some other way. According to experts, the United States is rapidly becoming the most litigious country in the world. Disputes that could easily have been settled out of court in any number of ways, including binding arbitration, now clog the average court calendar in all parts of the nation.
Which of the following statements, if true, BEST supports the argument?
A. An increasing number of court cases involve disputes between employees and their companies, which can be handled by government administrative boards.
(A) is correct. The argument is that the United States is becoming the most litigious country in the world, with the implication that litigiousness is not a good thing. The argument defines litigiousness as a tendency to take a dispute to court when it would be better to settle it elsewhere. The content of (A) is an example of one kind of dispute that is often taken to court that could be settled elsewhere, i.e., by an administrative board. (A) therefore supports the argument.
B. The greater the number of unnecessary court cases in a society, the larger the number of trial lawyers who are gainfully employed.
(B) is incorrect because the argument takes no position on the employment of trial lawyers. Whether the employment of trial lawyers is a desirable or undesirable result would depend entirely on the reader's opinion; since there's nothing in the stimulus to suggest that this is relevant, it does not support the argument.
C. Litigiousness is not necessarily a bad thing, since it encourages shy people to defend their rights.
(C) is incorrect because the author does not seem to be fond of litigiousness. The goal appears to be to avoid taking matters to court unnecessarily. To suggest, as (C) does, that litigiousness can actually be a good thing, regardless of the reason, undermines the argument.
D. Studies of litigiousness may not have taken into account the fact that most people don't understand how the courts work.
(D) is incorrect because the author makes no reference to "studies;" he does not attempt to use empirical evidence to support his argument. Still, even if it were true that people do not understand how the courts work, that does not change the fact that a great many disputes are taken to court unnecessarily. Why a litigant goes to court instead of using an alternative method of dispute resolution is irrelevant. "How the courts work" does not become relevant until after the dispute is taken to court.
E. The litigiousness of city dwellers can be explained by their feelings of isolation and loneliness in a hostile environment.
(E) is incorrect because, again, telling us why people take their disputes to court does not change the fact that many of them do so unnecessarily. The argument is only that we are becoming a litigious country, which means we take a lot of disputes to court that could, and should, be settled in other ways.
