Reading comp PrepTest 149 · Section 2 · Question 16

Passage

Questions 13-20  .  . Passage A  .       Comedians are not amused when their jokes are  . stolen, and for that Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage SummaryTopic: Legal Studies

Passage A
Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • A problem facing stand-up comedians is discussed, along with the legal implications
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Problem - Joke stealing is rampant in the stand-up comedy world
    • Legal aspect - Copyright law is most relevant, but not used for two reasons
      • Expensive
      • Hurdles make a successful lawsuit uncertain
    • Copyright law doesn't provide practical protections
Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • A paradox is introduced
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Traditional view - If something isn't legally protected, it won't be created
    • Reality - Comedians keep making up new jokes without legal protections
Paragraph 3
  • Paragraph note
    • The paradox/question is resolved
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Social norms offer protections that the law doesn't
    • The norms have punishments - people won't work with/hire a joke stealer
Passage B
Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • A problem facing chefs is introduced
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Problem - Recipes aren't protected by patents or copyrights, and while they're protected by trade secret laws, that's rarely done
    • Solution - social norms
Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • A description of the social norms at play, and their legal analogues
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Patents - Chefs don't use the recipe of another chef, even if it's publicly available
    • Contract - Chefs don't pass on secret information that a creator reveals to them
    • Copyright - Credit the chefs who created a recipe
Main Point:
Passage A - Copyright law doesn't protect jokes, but social norms provide similar protections and allow comedians to create and protect their work.

Passage B - Social norms provide chefs with protections similar to patents, contracts, and copyright.

Key Lines:

Passage A:
Lines 13-15 - Sum up problem faced by comedians
Lines 20-23 - Question/paradox presented
Lines 24-26 - The answer/resolution to the paradox is stated

Passage B:
Lines 40-44 - Sum up problem faced by chefs
Lines 46-49 - Solution to this problem is presented, along with structure for rest of passage
Paragraph 2 - A very dense paragraph that goes into the solutions developed for the chefs' problem

Meta-Structure - Relationship Between Passages:
This is an interesting set of Comparative Passages that falls into a repeated but less frequent pattern—they discuss analogous situations. Here, the legal situation for comedians is analogous to that of chefs, in that both lack many formal legal protections. And in both cases, social norms are noted as providing the protections that the law fails to provide.

Each passage presents a bit of a Problem/Solution structure, in that they highlight a lack of legal protections and how the industry has adapted to provide protections. And the first passage presents a Paradox/Question—why do comedians keep making jokes if they're not protected?

Last Thoughts:
This should be an interesting set of questions since the similarities between the passages largely come down to analogies and legal terms!

Question prompt

The author of passage Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: B

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

Question Type

Legal

Answer choices

  1. A
    Comedians rarely acknowledge the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 7-8) Passage A notes that joke stealing is ""persistent,"" but it never talks about the acknowledgement of influence.
  2. B
    Comedians would be more Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem
    Correct. Question Type:
    Must Be True

    Strategy Overview:
    Reiterate the main point of Passage A and then find an answer aligning with it, checking details against the passage by using our notations to find the relevant section

    Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
    There's no guidance as to the topic here, so we'll have to head into the answers with our big-picture understanding of Passage A and nothing else. We said the main point there was:

    Copyright law doesn't protect jokes, but social norms provide similar protections and allow comedians to create and protect their work.

    Let's find an answer aligning with that view, using our notations and the passage itself to double-check any details in the answer we're unsure of.

    Answer Explanation:
    (Lines 11-13) Passage A states two reasons for the relative lack of copyright violation lawsuits in the comedy world. The second is that ""legal hurdles"" make success ""difficult and uncertain."" If the Author believes that's a reason for a lack of lawsuits, then she would believe that removing those hurdles would increase the number of copyright lawsuits. This answer is therefore correct.

    Key Takeaway:
    In a question such as this one, it can be tempting to think that Passage B is irrelevant. It isn't—there are likely going to be answers that bring up information that showed up only in Passage B. Being able to identify those quickly will help you eliminate them!
  3. C
    Creative rights to jokes Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 44-45) Trade secrecy laws show up in Passage B but not in Passage A, so we don't know the author of Passage A's opinion on that topic.
  4. D
    The system of social Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 20-26; Lines 34-38) The Author closes out this passage by stating that the social norms are effective, and she earlier stated that social norms explain why comedians create jokes despite a lack of protections that are related to recouping creation costs, so she'd disagree with this answer.
  5. E
    In the particular context Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 34-38) The Author closes out the passage by stating that social norms are pretty effective after going into reasons that a formal system isn't, so there's evidence she'd disagree with this answer.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 8%
  2. B Credited 77%
  3. C 4%
  4. D 8%
  5. E 3%

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