PrepTest 140

[lcid:3659] Prep Test 140 LSAT — Reading Comp — S4 Reading comp

Passage

Passage A is from a source published in 2004 and passage B is from a source published in 2007. Questions Remaining source text redacted.
Passage walkthrough
Passage SummaryTopic: Legal Studies

Passage A
Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • Background
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Details on online multiplayer games
Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • A viewpoint is introduced
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Castronova - These games develop their own economies
Paragraph 3
  • Paragraph note
    • A new layer
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Castronova - People would sell their accounts for real money on eBay
Paragraph 4
  • Paragraph note
    • Bringing it all together
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Castronova - Virtual currency has real-world value, and online "work" was creating value
Passage B
Paragraph 1
  • Paragraph note
    • A split is introduced
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Some online games prohibit selling stuff for money; other encourage it
    • Example - IP rights
Paragraph 2
  • Paragraph note
    • A question is posed
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Sell virtual stuff for real money? Taxed!
    • If someone gets virtual stuff but doesn't sell it, should it be taxed?
Paragraph 3
  • Paragraph note
    • An answer is provided
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Most people - It shouldn't be
    • Author - I agree! Analogy - Fish that are caught are only taxed when sold
    • Author - Trading in-game items for others shouldn't be taxed
Paragraph 3
  • Paragraph note
    • Distinction is made to above answer, calling back to Paragraph 1
  • Views, minor Meta-Structures, points of intersection, and the author's attitude
    • Author - Selling virtual items for money should be taxed; games that commodify items should be taxed
Main Point:
Passage A - According to Castronova, multiplayer online games end up with a virtual economy that creates wealth with value in the real world

Passage B - Earning in-game items or trading them shouldn't be taxed, but selling them for real money or earning them in a game that intentionally commodifies them should be taxed

Key Lines:

Passage A:
Lines 7-9 - The phenomenon is described
Lines 13-16 - A new level to the phenomenon is described
Lines 18-19 - An implication of the phenomenon is described

Passage B:
Lines 26-29 - A distinction is made
Lines 32-36 - Questions are asked
Lines 44-45 - The Author's answer is presented
Lines 52-56 - An exception/distinction is made to the answer

Meta-Structure - Relationship Between Passages
Phenomenon/Implication and Question/Answer - Passage A (excitedly) describes a phenomenon. Likely, the writers of the LSAT assumed that this topic was a bit outside of most people's experience, and so they felt the need to highlight the situation before including an argument. And that argument features in Passage B, where the economy in online games described in Passage A is then subjected to a question—should these things be taxed?

So the two passages are strongly related. Passage A describes a phenomenon, and Passage B asks a question about how that phenomenon should be treated.

Last Thoughts:
Note how most of our notations on Passage A are about what is being described. While it's filtered through a specific viewpoint—Castronova's—it's largely describing an online economy that creates goods for real-world sale. That said, the language used is definitely more on the positive side—down to the punctuation (exclamation marks).

Also, note that Passage B has a callback to the original distinction when it draws another distinction in the last paragraph. When it kicked off, it talked about games that prohibit real-world trade in virtual items versus those that encourage it by providing IP rights to those goods. The last paragraph is about games that are "intentionally commodified," which is referring to that latter set of games.

Question prompt

Which one of the 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
    The former refers to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. (Line 25; Line 47) Passage A does say that skinning animals online creates wealth. However, Passage B doesn't say that catching a fish doesn't generate wealth. Rather, it argues that it shouldn't be taxed. Those are distinct concepts.
  2. B
    The former refers to Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem
    Correct. Question Type:
    Argument Structure

    Strategy Overview:
    Identify the role of each statement, and then relate them to each other, keeping in mind the overall relationship of the passages

    Answer Anticipation/Relevant Lines:
    We should head straight back into the passages to see what role these two specific details serve.

    For Passage A, the skinning of animals in the game to sell their pelts was an example of an activity that was "creating wealth" (Line 25).

    For Passage B, fish pulled from the ocean are given as an analogous situation to "[l]oot acquisitions in game worlds," (Lines 45-46) and thus shouldn't be taxed.

    So they're both talking about activities, only the former is an in-game one, and the latter is one treated by the Author as an analogous activity in the real world. Let's find an answer stating that relationship.

    Answer Explanation:
    (Lines 23-24; Lines 47-49) Passage A says that players are skinning the animals, so it's an online activity. Passage B says that such in-game acquisitions should be treated "like" fish pulled from the ocean, drawing an analogy between the in-game action and a real-world one. This answer thus reflects the relationship between the two statements, so it's correct.

    Key Takeaway:
    Note that this question, at its heart, was asking about a comparison—and, specifically, about a pair of things that one of the passages argued should be treated the same. That played strongly into both selecting the right answer and eliminating the wrong ones. Comparisons are as key in RC as they are in LR!
  3. C
    The former, unlike the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 45-47) Passage B says that in-game acquisitions, like fish pulled from the ocean, shouldn't be taxed, so the Author of that passage believes the two items should be treated the same.
  4. D
    The latter, unlike the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 45-47) This answer just flips which commodity should be taxed around but, as we noted in (C), the Author of Passage B believes the two items should be treated the same.
  5. E
    Both are used as Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Incorrect. (Lines 45-49) Passage B says that loot acquisitions in game should be treated like fish caught from the ocean—implying that those fish are being caught in the real world, not online.

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