Reading comp PrepTest 125 · Section 3 · Question 20

Topic: Social Science

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Author: Unexpected effect of market system
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Comparison between expectation and reality of market system, according to the author:
    • Under the market system, rich people invest in new technologies and make money, so we’d expect the rich get richer
    • Although the rich get richer, everyone benefits from new tech and the gap has narrowed over time
  • Author’s attitude: “may sesame” (line 3); “But in spite of the fact” (lines 5-6); “remarkable democratizing force” (line 9); “In fact” (line 9), “the gap in benefits accruing to different groups of people has been narrowed in the long term” (lines 10-12)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Examples of technologies that have benefited everyone
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • List of examples of technologies that have benefited everyone, according to the author:
    • Printing press - Significantly more people can read and own books
    • Computer/modem - Computing power and database access
    • Leisure(/Communication) - TV, phones, email

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • How it works (causal chain)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Cause-and-effect relationship, according to the author:
    • Entrepreneurs want to increase market, so they lower prices, resulting in tech getting to more and more people
  • Author’s attitude: “not an accident (line 50);

Main Point: While the market system can be expected to make investors richer as new technologies they invest in sell well, the market actually serves as a democratizing force in that it leads to lower prices that provide access to new technologies to broader swathes of the population.

Lines 1-5 - Expected outcome

Lines 8-9 - Unexpected outcome

Lines 13-14 - A list of examples is introduced

Lines 49-52 - Examples are said to be part of a general pattern

Lines 57-60 - Causal chain on how it all works

Phenomenon/Explanation: The passage starts by talking about what “may seem” to be the “primary result” of the market system - rich investors getting richer (Lines 1-5). And while the author doesn’t question that outcome, the author puts forward another outcome that’s unexpected - the market serves as a “remarkable democratizing force,” providing new technologies/developments to the broader population (Lines 8-12). When a passage describes an unexpected outcome, the author will likely explain how that outcome comes to pass. This strongly suggests a Phenomenon/Explanation Meta-Structure. Indeed, after providing several examples of technologies that benefit the larger population, the author describes how it all works. When the author spends so much time explaining how an unexpected outcome occurs, that explanation should be reflected in the main point.

Generalization/Example: The author opens up this passage with a generalization - the market has served as a remarkable democratizing force because it results in new technologies becoming available to the broader population (Lines 5-12). The author then spends a very long Paragraph 2 providing several examples of such developments/technologies, and opens Paragraph 3 by stating that these examples aren’t exceptions but rather “the result of a general tendency of the market system” (Lines 49-52). When the author spends that much of the passage providing examples for a generalization, the generalization will almost always be central to the main point.

Causality: The entire passage is dripping with causality. The opening paragraph’s generalization is a causal one — the market is a “democratizing force.” Paragraph 2 brings up example after example of a new technology that resulted in a benefit to the broader population. And Paragraph 3 explains the causal chain on how the market serves as a democratizing force. Since the passage features so much causality, we should expect correct answers that have causal language in them.

There were a lot of small details, technologies, and benefits listed in Paragraph 2, so we should be careful when dealing with questions about those examples and be sure to check these minor details as they show up in the answer choices.