Reading comp PrepTest 149 · Section 2 · Question 18

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 relationship described in Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: D

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

Question Type

Legal

Answer choices

  1. A
    intellectual property
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. Intellectual property is what's being protected by these laws (or social norms), so it's not analogous to any specific type of law.
  2. B
    patent law
    Why choice B is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 3-5; Line 43) Recipes are noted as being ""rarely patentable,"" whereas copyright law does apply to jokes.
  3. C
    the combinations of ingredients Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. Without even having read the passage, we should be able to tell that a comedian's set of jokes would be analogous to the ingredients in a recipe.
  4. D
    trade secrecy law
    Why choice D matches the stem
    Correct. Question Type:
    Parallel Reasoning

    Strategy Overview:
    Read the part describing the first relationship and then relate that to something in the second relationship

    Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
    In Passage A, the first paragraph is where law (as opposed to social norms) is discussed, so we should check there to see how comedians interact with copyright law. In Lines 3-7, we learn that it technically applies to jokes, and yet it's rarely used to bring a lawsuit against someone stealing jokes. So we should check Passage B to find a type of law that technically applies to recipes but that chefs don't use to protect their intellectual property.

    Paragraph 1 in Passage B is where law (as opposed to social norms) is discussed. There, we see in Lines 44-46, that trade secrecy laws potentially provide legal protections but are rarely used by chefs. So trade secrecy laws to chefs are analogous to copyright laws for comedians. Let's find an answer stating that.

    Answer Explanation:
    (Lines 3-7; Lines 44-46) Passage A notes that copyright law technically applies to jokes but it's rarely used to bring a lawsuit against infringing comedians. Passage B notes that trade secrecy laws provide legal protections to chefs but that they're ""very seldom use[d]."" This is therefore the correct answer.

    Key Takeaway:
    Make sure to match up the elements! RC Parallel Reasoning questions are much more about matching those elements up than they are about analyzing the underlying logic. If you can figure out which elements are analogous to which, you can find the correct answer in this question type most of the time.
  5. E
    social norms
    Why choice E is not credited
    Incorrect. Social norms are brought up in both passages as serving the same purpose, so they're not analogous to a type of legal protection.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 18%
  2. B 12%
  3. C 5%
  4. D Credited 61%
  5. E 5%

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