Q19

[hyewonkim89]

I am completely lost on this question...

I don't see why (D) is the answer for both authors.

Please help!

[eshire89]

So I thought this was tricky, but the reason D works is because in A, there's discussion about the Solnick and Hemenway experiment, and the author I felt framed the experiment as showing how humans care more about doing financial better than others than an absolute increase in their own wealth as "irrational" He stresses that humans don't act that that way in any other aspect. I didn't immediately think "misguided," but "happy" and "lucky" and "altruistic" were easy to rule out. "Insular" was a little harder, but there really isn't evidence for it and "cosmopolitan" definitely didn't work for B

Now with passage B, it helps if you zone in on the last paragraph which basically says wanting to make more money than your neighbor isn't about being "ignoble" or one-upping; it's the opposite because it's about creating valuable. "Admirable" seemed like a pretty good fit for that.

Hope this helps!

[rinagoldfield]

Let’s start by thinking about the passages. Both discuss the phenomenon of people feeling pleased when they have more than their neighbors. The author of Passage A interprets this phenomenon negatively. He argues that our desire for increasing levels of luxury means that we "overinvest in acquiring [material possessions] at the expense of leisure" (line s 22-24). This is bad. The author of Passage B, on the other hand, interprets the phenomenon positively. "Earning more makes people happier because relative prosperity makes them feel that they are successful, that they have created value," she explains. "Wanting [to create value] benefits society." (lines 50-53, 64-65).

The question here asks us to figure out what the author of each passage might think about a person who wants more than his or her neighbors. We know that the author of Passage A thinks the such a person is motivated by bad and self-harmful competitiveness. The author of Passage B thinks that such a person is motivated by a desire to create value, which is good for society.

Answer choice (D) matches on both counts.

(A) is out of scope. (Cosmopolitan? Insular?)
(B) is reversed.
(C) is unsupported.
(E) is out of scope (primitive?)

Hope that helps.

[maria487]

The author of Passage A interprets this phenomenon negatively. He argues that our desire for increasing levels of luxury means that we "overinvest in acquiring [material possessions] at the expense of leisure" (line s 22-24). This is bad. .

I'm having trouble seeing that author A expresses any opinion on the matter. Upon reading passage A, it seems completely factual to me and, in fact, it still does. Paragraph 3 uses words/phrases that could be interpreted to have a negative connotation, or they could just be stating the facts. "Overinvesting" is not inherently bad.

Are there other reference points in the passage which suggest that the author feels that people who want to make more money are "misguided"? I feel like this is all based on one sentence (lines 21-23) which does not necessarily indicate that the author feels they are misguided.


Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

I agree with you, that the first half of (D) is far from lovable.

But it IS inherently negative to say over-investing. That prefix indicates an excessive degree, a failure to accurately gauge how much to invest.

And while most of the passage does sound neutral, lines 20-23 sound more opinionated, in part because they take on the 1st person voice.

Structuring a sentence as
"We do not foresee ______ , so we do _______ to an excessive degree"
is good enough for 'misguided'.

Sometimes you have to just plug your nose and pick the best choice, even if you don't think it's up to the 'usual' standards of LSAT support.

[phoebster21]

The author of Passage A interprets this phenomenon negatively. He argues that our desire for increasing levels of luxury means that we "overinvest in acquiring [material possessions] at the expense of leisure" (line s 22-24). This is bad. .

I'm having trouble seeing that author A expresses any opinion on the matter. Upon reading passage A, it seems completely factual to me and, in fact, it still does. Paragraph 3 uses words/phrases that could be interpreted to have a negative connotation, or they could just be stating the facts. "Overinvesting" is not inherently bad.

Are there other reference points in the passage which suggest that the author feels that people who want to make more money are "misguided"? I feel like this is all based on one sentence (lines 21-23) which does not necessarily indicate that the author feels they are misguided.


Thank you!

I had an issue with picking this answer as well. However, it occurred to me during review that the whole point of passage A was about a pardox between happiness and wealth. It's almost as if the author is saying, "hey, you, you have more money and are richer now (in absolute terms) than you were 10 years ago, but because everyone else's wealth rose more than your's (comparatively), you're less happy. You have more money now than back then, yet you're still less happppppy????"

Explaining this paradox about human nature could support the "misguided" concept.

[limengsun.gw]

[size=100][/size]

I agree with you, that the first half of (D) is far from lovable.

But it IS inherently negative to say over-investing. That prefix indicates an excessive degree, a failure to accurately gauge how much to invest.

And while most of the passage does sound neutral, lines 20-23 sound more opinionated, in part because they take on the 1st person voice.

Structuring a sentence as
"We do not foresee ______ , so we do _______ to an excessive degree"
is good enough for 'misguided'.

Sometimes you have to just plug your nose and pick the best choice, even if you don't think it's up to the 'usual' standards of LSAT support.

Thanks a lot for the break-down! However, it seems to me that "overinvesting" (line 23) was to describe the "habituation" phenomenon, which means people are happier when their wages INCREASE (not higher than others). It didn't seem to concern the type of person that the question stem refers to (those who want to make more money than the neighbors). Only the second part of passage A (the "rivalry" phenomenon, starting line 24) talked about them. So I'm not sure how the author of passage A really feels about those who falls into the "rivalry" category (aka people referred to by the question stem ).

[BoningY78]

I'm still curisous on the first half of answer choice C. The question is asking about "a person who wants to make more money than his or her neighbors." So, this is about the rivalry thoery. As passage A says, the norm of comparing with others is motivated by two reasons, habituation and rivalry. In line 20-23, Passage A negates the habituational reason. Then, Passage A starts discussion of rivalry reason from line 24. Since then, Passage A never says the rivalry reason is wrong. Then, how can we say a person who wants more money than one's neighbors is misguided? I think Passage A only supports that people who always want more money than themselves without balancing against leisure is misguided.