LSAT PrepTest 140 - Section 4 - Passage 2 - Question 10

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Passage A is from a source published in 2004 and passage B is from a source published in 2007.

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Intro topic · Multiplayer online games

People play charaters tht band together to kill monsters. (Think World of Warcraft.)

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.

Additional point of interest · "Player auctions"

People sometimes sold their online character's possessions.

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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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Intro topic · Real-world trading of in-game items

Most games prohibit it, but some encourage it.

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Important questions · Is acquiring in-game items taxable? Is money made from selling in-game items taxable?

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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.

Author's perspective · Sale of in-game items for real-world money should be taxable

Passage Style

10.

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Question Type

Analogy (RC)

What’s the relationship between the passages? Passage A describes the discovery of commerce in virtual items in online multiplayer games. Passage B makes recommendations about how to tax that commerce. Let’s look for a pair of titles where the first involves an introduction or discovery of the thing, and the second involves a recommendation about how the law should treat the thing.

"Advances in Artificial █████████████

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Passage B’s title doesn’t suggest that the document will contain recommendations for how law should treat artificial intelligence.

"Internet Retailers Post ████ █████

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Passage B’s title doesn’t suggest that the document will contain recommendations for how law should treat internet retailers or the good year that those retailers had. Passage B suggests it’s a report about what lawmakers intend to do; that’s not analogous to Passage B, which doesn’t merely report on what someone else would do.

11%

"New Planet Discovered ██ █████ ███████

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Passage B’s title doesn’t suggest that the document will contain recommendations for how the law should treat the newly discovered planet.

11%

"Biologists Create New ███████ ██ ████

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This is the best answer. “Biologists Create New Species in Lab” is analogous to the discovery of commerce in online multi-player games. “How Patent Law Applies” is analogous to Passage B’s recommendation about how tax law should handle the discovery described in Passage A.

71%

"A Renegade Economist's █████ ██ █████████

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Passage B’s title doesn’t suggest that the document will contain recommendations for how the law should treat something.

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PrepTest 140 - Section 4 - Passage 2 - Question 10

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