Reading comp PrepTest 141 · Section 3 · Question 16

Passage SummaryTopic: Social Science

Passage A
Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • A paradox, a resolution, and two factors in resolution
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Paradox - Richer happier than poorer, but if a country gets richer, it doesn't get happier
  • Resolution - People compare income to a norm that rises with actual income
  • Factors - Habituation and Rivalry

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Habituation is discussed
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Living standard up, love it, then get used to it, then doesn't matter
  • Examples - "Required income" and job satisfaction

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Habituation distinction
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Not in all areas of life - buying things different

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Rivalry study introduced
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Solnick and Hemenway (S+H) - All prices equal, would you rather make more than friends but less overall, or make more overall but less than friends?
  • Outcome - Most picked former

Paragraph 5

• Paragraph note
  • Rivalry is discussed
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Happiness dependent on how people compare selves to others
  • Example - East Germany

Passage B
Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Question on S+H study
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • S+H study - Do we care most about one-upmanship?
  • Answer - Makes sense with wanting to pass on genes

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Answer is wrong; here's the real answer
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Answer from P1 sounds good, but it doesn't best fit data
  • Real answer - Earning more than others makes us feel we've created value

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • More details on connection
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Two people earn different amounts, feel equally successful = equally happy
  • Earn more generally means feel successful, but success → happy, not more money

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Contrasting conclusions
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
  • Scholars - People want more than others (bad)
  • Author - People want to provide value to society (good)

Main Point:
Passage A - Habituation and rivalry push up the norm for income, and that norm is what people compare themselves to, explaining why a society can get richer but the individuals within it don't see a similar increase in happiness.

Passage B - While it's commonly stated and reasonable to think that S+H's study suggests people want to earn more than others, the evidence actually suggests that people want to provide value to society, and that - not money - provides happiness.

Key Lines:

Passage A:
Lines 1-5 - A paradox is introduced
Lines 6-8 - The paradox is resolved
Lines 8-9 - Two factors relevant to the resolution
Lines 10-11 - The first factor is described
Lines 24-25 - A study is introduced
Lines 34-35 - The second factor is described

Passage B:
Lines 41-42 - A question is asked
Lines 42-45 - An answer is presented
Lines 49-50 - The Author says the first answer is not best supported by the evidence
Lines 50-53 - The Author's answer

Meta-Structure - Relationship Between Passages:
These two passages are interesting in that the second explicitly mentions a study that was brought up in the first, calling it into question. Passage A and Passage B both talk about relative income and how it plays into happiness, and in doing so they both discuss a study by Solnick and Hemenway. The Author of Passage A relies on it in his discussion of rivalry, highlighting how it shows that comparing ourselves to others leads to unhappiness. The Author of Passage B, however, argues that the evidence from their study better supports an alternative hypothesis - that people view their success at providing value to society as being tied to income, and it's this value that leads to happiness. So the two have different views on the study and on the conclusions that can be drawn from it! But, interestingly, they don't necessarily conflict. The Author of Passage A believes that people with a higher income are happier, and so does the Author of Passage B - they just differ in what they think is the cause of that happiness (relatively high income for Passage A; feeling more successful in Passage B).

Paradox/Resolution (Passage A) - The Author of Passage A kicks off that passage by explicitly mentioning a paradox (Lines 1-5). Normally, when a paradox serves as a key element in a passage, the Author's resolution of it is the main point. Here, the Author resolves the paradox in the first paragraph (Lines 6-8), cites two factors that are relevant to that resolution (Lines 8-9), and she then spends the rest of the passage exploring those two factors. Therefore, the main point should surround these factors and how they play into the resolution of the noted paradox.

Question/Answer (Passage B) - Passage B kicks off with a question, and when a question serves as a key element in a passage, the Author's answer is generally the main point. Here, the Author fakes us out a bit. He starts by providing one answer, but then he pivots in Paragraph 2 to another answer. Since that answer is the one that he thinks is "best supported by the evidence," that's the main point (and we included the opposing point in our phrasing of it).

Last Thoughts:
Passage A - Note that Paragraphs 2 and 3 don't explicitly mention habituation, but what they describe fits the definition of the word, and Paragraph 4 starts by telling us to consider rivalry, the second of the two phenomena that are listed as factors in the Author's resolution of the paradox. Noting that these paragraphs are about habituation makes it a lot easier to track what the Author is saying there!