Reading comp PrepTest 123 · Section 4 · Question 17

Passage

 The World Wide Web, a network of electronically produced and interconnected (or "linked") sites, called pages, that are accessible via Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage SummaryTopic: Legal Studies

Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • New technology leads to debate
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • New tech - Internet, linked sites on computers
    • IP owners - Without stronger copyright laws, the internet will have a lot of infringement
    • Users - Reducing access makes internet less valuable

Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • New question/consideration from new tech; current law
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Central issue - website can link to document on another
    • Traditional IP protection - Owner can sue distributor for unauthorized copies
    • Question - Does linking to a document count as copyright infringement?

Paragraph 3.1 (Lines 28-44)
  • Paragraph note
    • Analogy leads to answer
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Analogy - Like recording an outgoing message on phone/giving out number
    • Author's Answer - No, it doesn't

Paragraph 3.1 (Lines 44-55)
  • Paragraph note
    • "Moreover"; Technique available to protect doc you put online; recommendation
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
    • Example - Password (somewhat limit open access, but not as much as copyright law changes)
    • Author - Copyright law shouldn't be changed, as it would hurt the internet

Main Point:
Putting a link to a document on another website shouldn't be considered copyright infringement because the copyright owner, by posting it, still controls it and has made it available for distribution.

Key Lines:
Lines 6-9 - One side of a debate
Lines 9-13 - The other side
Lines 23-27 - The central question is posed
Lines 28-30 - A requirement to answer the question
Line 31- An extended analogy is introduced
Lines 40-44 - The Author's answer
Lines 44-46 - Another consideration/support, and an example
Lines 52-55 - Author's opinion on related subject

Meta-Structure:
Question/Answer - The passage focuses on a question posed in Paragraph 2—does linking to a document constitute copyright infringement? Through the use of an extended analogy between phone messages/numbers and the internet (Lines 31-37), the Author concludes that no, it isn't (Lines 40-44). When a passage has a central Question/Answer structure, the Author's answer to the question is the main point of the passage, as we highlighted in our main point above.

Analogy - The Author uses an extended analogy in Lines 31-37 to relate posting a link to a document on another website to giving out someone's phone number. This is all in service of answering the question that's central to the passage.

Add-On - This passage includes an "Add-On" at the end—everything after the "Moreover" in Line 44. This segment of the passage adds to the Author's argument but it doesn't build from the central evidence, instead going off in a bit of a different direction. It reflects her opinion, but not necessarily her main point.

Last Thoughts:
We split up Paragraph 3 for two reasons. First, there are two distinct ideas in there, with the first highlighting an analogy that answers the Author's question, and the second with some additional points she makes relevant to the issue but not the central question. Second, that second half is introduced with "Moreover" (Line 44), which is an interesting structural word. It serves the same purpose as "Besides," in that it's introducing a side consideration that, while relevant, isn't directly speaking to the main point, or, at most, is support for that main point. So while that section of the passage could be asked about, it doesn't have to be reflected in the main point.

Question prompt

With which one of Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: E

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Question Type

Legal

Strategy Overview

Remind ourselves of the main point of the passage, then head to the answers, focusing on those that line up with the main point and then using our notes/the passage to find the correct answer

Answer Anticipation

More or less the entire passage was about documents placed on Web pages, so there's not too much guidance as to what the correct answer will say. As such, we'll need to rely on our big—picture understanding of the passage to answer this question. We should start by reminding ourselves of the main point (either by reviewing what we said after reading the passage or by rereading our answer to the main point question). From there, we can head to the answers, deferring on those that don't line up with the main point. For those that do, we'll use our notes and the passage to see if it's correct.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Such documents cannot receive Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 42—44; Lines 46—47; Lines 52—55) This answer doesn't line up with the Author's main point, so it can be quickly dismissed.
  2. B
    Such documents cannot be Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 46—50) The Author says that these documents can be password—protected while only "somewhat" compromising the potential of the Web, which is much less than "significantly diminishing" it.
  3. C
    The nearly instantaneous access Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 44—47) The Author says that there are already means for protecting documents, such as putting them behind a password.
  4. D
    Such documents can be Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 44—47) Similar to the last answer, the Author believes that putting these documents behind a password can protect them without significantly limiting the openness of the web.
  5. E
    Such documents cannot fully Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E matches the stem
    Correct. (Lines 49—51) This answer lines up with the Author's overall point that accessing online docs doesn't constitute infringement, and her side point that the laws should be changed. It's also reinforced by her statement that means of protecting the docs other than changing laws — such as using passwords — "somewhat" limits the openness of the web. As such, she must believe that any limits on access puts some limitation on the Web's potential, and thus these limitations would prevent a document from fully contributing to the free exchange of ideas.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 10%
  2. B 41%
  3. C 7%
  4. D 7%
  5. E Credited 35%

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