Reading comp PrepTest 134 · Section 4 · Question 2

Topic: Legal

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Debate on ways to deter deliberate crimes (opportunity and rehab vs. punishment and law enforcement); new scholarship shows that the two sides are complementary
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Comparison, according to the author:
    • A distinction is drawn between deliberate crimes (fraud) and impulsive crimes (crimes of passion) (first sentence)
  • Cause-and-effect relationships, according to first legal scholars:
    • The influence of society and institutions cause people to commit crimes (second sentence)
    • Changing people's beliefs about crime, increasing economic opportunities for poor people, and rehabilitating those convicted for crimes will cause a drop in the crime rate (third sentence)
  • Cause-and-effect relationships, according to second legal scholars:
    • Individual choice causes people to commit crimes (fourth sentence)
    • Increasing penalties for committing crime and improving law enforcement will cause a drop in the crime rate (fifth sentence)
  • Author's view:
    • New scholarship introduces an economic principle that shows these two sides are two sides of the same coin (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "problem" (first sentence); "has changed" (last sentence); "shows that these two positions, far from being antithetical, are surprisingly complementary" (last sentence)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Description of economic principle (utility maximization — weighing expected benefits/costs of an action)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Definition of "utility maximization": What are the outcomes, benefits, and likelihoods? Add these up to get "expected utility" (first and second sentences)
  • Author's view
    • Crime is a rational economic choice based on expected utility (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "reconciles" (first sentence); "can be analyzed" (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Author applies utility maximization to the debate (one side increases costs and one side lowers benefits; should do both)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Comparisons, according to the author:
    • People will commit crimes if the expected utility of committing a crime is greater than the expected utility of not committing a crime (first sentence)
    • The two approaches to deter deliberate crimes have the same effect (second sentence)
  • Examples of the effects both approaches have on crime deterrence, according to the author:
    • The first side (increase opportunities/rehab) makes legal actions more beneficial, making their expected utility greater than crime's expected utility (fifth and sixth sentences)
    • The second side (increase penalties/enforcement) makes crime more costly, bringing down crime's expected utility (third and fourth sentences)
  • Author's view:
    • The two approaches are compatible, so the best approach to crime deterrence should involve both (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "same overall effect" (second sentence); "results in" (third sentence); "thereby making" (fourth sentence); "also affect" (fifth sentence); "will effectively increase" (sixth sentence); "demonstrates that the two positions are not fundamentally in conflict, and that the optimal approach to crime deterrence would include elements of both deterrence strategies" (last sentence)

Main Point: Recent scholarship shows that the economic principle of utility maximization shows that two sides of a debate on deliberate crime deterrence are complementary, so an optimal approach to deterrence would take ideas from both sides.

Resolving a Debate: This passage best fits the Resolving a Debate Meta-Structure.* Both the Describing a Debate and Resolving a Debate Meta-Structures fall within the Debate family of Meta-Structures. In a Describing a Debate passage, the author will typically describe two sides of a debate without taking a side or attempting to reconcile the two sides. In a Resolving a Debate Meta-Structure, the author will take a side or attempt to resolve the debate. In this passage, the author resolves the debate between two groups of legal scholars on how to deter deliberate crimes. The author resolves this debate by showing that both sides are correct — under the principle of utility maximization, both approaches will deter crimes.

In a Resolving a Debate passage, the main point is generally the author's opinion on the debate or the author's mediation/reconciliation of the debate. To identify the main point, we can look for whether the author provides a conclusion that summarizes their opinion or mediation/reconciliation. Fortunately, the author provides their conclusion in the passage's last sentence, which we can use on any question that requires us to consider the main point.

*That said, several other Meta-Structures could fit this passage. We could think of this as a Problem/Solution (problem: deterring deliberate crime; solution: using both approaches) or a Phenomenon/Explanation passage (phenomenon: committing deliberate crimes; explanation: utility maximization). Since the author shows why conventional views or approaches are incomplete, we could even think of this as a Correcting the Record or Old Approach/New Approach passage.

Causality: This passage uses all of the minor Meta-Structures but features cause-and-effect relationships most prominently. This makes sense, as both sides of the debate and the author explain what causes people to commit deliberate crimes and what can cause people to think twice before committing a crime. Having each cause-and-effect relationship highlighted, underlined, or noted will make it easier to answer the few inevitable questions about such relationships.

The discussion of utility maximization and expected utility was definitely high-level and difficult, dealing with likelihoods, costs, and addition, so we should be sure to approach any question about that principle carefully.