Q17

[inesa909]

Hello, I thought this question was pretty difficult and I'm still having a hard time understanding why B was correct and D was incorrect. It seemed to me that D was the answer because it described tensions among economists when they were trying to mathematically explain increasing returns, and how attempts to model decreasing returns proved easier than modeling increasing returns. What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance

[rosscbrockway]

I thought this was difficult as well, although I picked C as the answer. B seemed too strong, in that the paragraph doesn't really give details about the difficult of modeling increasing returns--it simply says that its difficult. C on the other hand might be interpreted as "it sketches the intuitions supporting the assumption of diminishing returns" (as opposed to increasing returns). Obviously I overthought this question, but an explanation would be most appreciated.

P.S.- The reason I eliminated D, for what is worth, was the word "resulting." Paragraph 4 doesn't talk about what happens after or because of the success in modeling diminishing returns and difficulty in modeling increasing returns, nor does it talk about how different economists felt about t. Hopefully that helps a little.

[ohthatpatrick]

Let's make sure we roughly agree on the overall Passage Map.

P1:
new book talks about contradiction between Invisible Hand and Pin Factory

P2:
Background on / Explanation of Pin Factory and Invisible Hand

P3:
Discussion of how the two oppose each other: truth of Invisible Hand assumes the opposite of Pin Factory (assumes diminishing, not increasing, returns to scale)

P4:
For 200 years Invisible Hand (diminishing returns) ruled because easier to describe mathematically than Pin Factory

P5:
Old attempts to show examples of Pin Factory failed because of lacking the math; only recently has this changed (we now have math to do so) so people take Pin Factory seriously

So for Q17, I want something that sounds like "for 200 years Invisible Hand (diminishing returns) ruled because it's easier to describe mathematically than Pin Factory"

(A) No one in this passage had a theory trying to resolve Pin Factory and Invisible Hand.

(B) Keep it. The 4th did say it was easier to model Invis. Hand, harder to model Pin Factory.

(C) The 4th didn't discuss whether either theory was more intuitive or what intuitions underlie the theories. It just spoke about Invisible Hand winning for mathematical reasons. Line 39, saying "it WASN'T about ideology" is the closest to "intuitions", and this would be an opposite answer.

(D) Keep it. We are talking about attempts to model Invis Hand vs. Pin Factory

(E) This is a descriptive paragraph, not an evaluative/persuasive one. It describes WHY Pin Factory was not taken seriously, but doesn't refute either theory.

So down to (B) vs. (D), let's look for differences.

"explain the difficulty associated with modeling one"
or
"describe the tensions resulting from modeling the two"

Let's find some line references to clinch one or eliminate the other:
Invis Hand dominates Pin Factory. That's not a great match for "tension". "Tension" sounds more like constant friction. This is just a clear winner and a clear loser.

What is the difficultly associated with modeling Pin Factory?
line 46-47 "increasing returns are notoriously hard to represent mathematically".

Coupled with "42-44", "economists have always sought the rigor and clarity that comes from representing ideas using numbers and equations" we get an answer to the "Why?" in line 38.

So while the support for (B) seems to be a little narrow, it ties back to the overall discussion of the paragraph and its place in the passage: why did Invis Hand dominate for 200 years? Because until recently, it was DIFFICULT to represent Pin Factory mathematically.

(D) is frustratingly decent, but it's less accurate to say this paragraph discussed tension between two things as much as why a problem with one thing caused it to be dominated by the other.

Hope this helps.