Self-study
Passage A is from a source published in 2004 and passage B is from a source published in 2007.
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P1
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Intro topic ·
Multiplayer online games
People play charaters tht band together to kill monsters. (Think World of Warcraft.)
P2
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Castronova's interest ·
Intrigued by economy in multiplayer online games
People collected things from monsters after killing them, and traded those things. This was an economy.
P3
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Additional point of interest ·
"Player auctions"
People sometimes sold their online character's possessions.
P4
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Castronova's discovery ·
Trading game items was currency trading
Items in-game had an in-game value. But when these items were sold for real money, that meant the in-game currency had real-life value.
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P5
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Intro topic ·
Real-world trading of in-game items
Most games prohibit it, but some encourage it.
P6
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Important questions ·
Is acquiring in-game items taxable? Is money made from selling in-game items taxable?
P7
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Author's perspective ·
Acquiring items shouldn't be taxable, but the sale should be taxed
Acquiring in-game items should be like things that require effort to obtain (ex. fishing). Taxable at sale, not acquisition.
P8
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Author's perspective ·
Sale of in-game items for real-world money should be taxable
Passage Style
13.
Based on passage B, which ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ █ ██████████████ ██ ████ █
Question Type
Meaning in context (of word, phrase, or idea)
Structure
It’s difficult to predict the correct answer just based on the question stem. We can tell from the last paragraph that for games that are intentionally commodified, the author believes we should tax in-game (”in-world”) sales for in-game currency.
a
The game allows ███████ ████ █████ ███ ███████ █████████
Not supported, because the author comments on “in-world sales for virtual currency.” “In-world sales” refers to in-game sales, not sales of real items in the real world.
b
The game allows ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ████ █████ ████████
Not supported, because trading avatars is never mentioned.
c
Players of the ████ ████ █████████ ███ ██████ ████ █████
Not supported, because Passage B never comments on wealth growth over time.
d
Players of the ████ ███ ████████████ ████████ ██████ ██ █████ ██████████
e
Players of the ████ ███ ████████ ███ ███████ ████████ ███ ███████ ███████ █████████
Not supported, because Passage B never discusses the exchange of one currency for another currency.