PrepTest 108 - Section 1 - Passage 3 - Question 18

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Many people complain about corporations, but there are also those whose criticism goes further and who hold corporations morally to blame for many of the problems in Western society. █████ █████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ███████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ █████ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████ █████████ █████ ██ ████ ████ ████████ ███████ ███████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ █████████ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████ █████ ███

Some people's view · Corporations are immoral when they ignore their impacts on the public good

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Economists' view · Shouldn't apply ethics to economics

Context · Corporate responsibility

Corporations aren't inherently moral/immoral. Instead, corporate responsibility is made up of employees' individual responsibilities.

Context · Corporate structure

CEO has obligation toward corporation's owners

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Economists' view · One responsibility of CEO: maximize profits

Meets CEO's obligation to owners and also serves public good

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Author's criticism · Economists are wrong

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Premise · Maximizing profits doesn't always serve public good

E.g.: maximizing profits for paper mill can harm public good

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Premise · Public good outweighs obligation to maximize profits

CEO should serve public good even when it's not in owners' interest

Passage Style

Critique or debate

18.

The discussion of the paper ████ ██ ███ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ████████ █████████ ██

Question Type

Purpose in context (of word, phrase, or idea)

Structure

This asks for the purpose of the paper mill discussion in the broader context of the passage. The paper mill is brought up as an example to illustrate how sometimes, maximizing profit does not benefit the public. The author uses this example to directly counter the economists' claim that maximizing profit always turns out best for the public.

offer an actual ████ ██ █████████ █████████ ████████

It’s a hypothetical example, not an actual case. The author’s just talking about the possibility of something that would harm the public good while maximizing profit. He never offers any actual cases of unethical corporate behavior.

refute the contention ████ ████████████ ██ ███████ ███████████ ████████ ███ ██████

The economists contend that maximization of profits necessarily benefits the public. The paper mill example refutes this by illustrating how maximizing profit can potentially be at odds with benefiting the public.

96%

illustrate that ethical ████████████ ██ ████████████ █████ ██ █████████ ██ ███████

The author never considers the ease or difficulty of enforcing ethical restrictions. He just argues that corporations should adhere to certain ethical restrictions (namely, not acting against the public good).

demonstrate that corporations ███ ███████████ ███ ████ ██████ ████

Too strong. The paper mill example merely demonstrates that there’s a possibility of corporations harming public interests in their pursuit of profit—not that corporations are, in fact, responsible for many ills.

deny that corporations ███ ███████ ██ ██████ ███████

Too strong. The paper mill example merely demonstrates that there’s a possibility of corporations acting immorally in their pursuit of profit. Also, recall that the author’s main point is that corporations have a responsibility to act morally—this suggests that he believes they’re at least capable of doing so.

PrepTest 108 - Section 1 - Passage 3 - Question 18

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