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Explanations

PT13.S1.Q3

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25

SECTION 2 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 3 · rc

PASSAGE 1
Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8

PASSAGE 2
Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13

PASSAGE 3
Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20

PASSAGE 4
Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 4 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24

PrepTest 13 - Section 1 - Question 3

Question

Explanation

Analytics

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Mayor of Plainsville: In order to help the economy of Plainsville, I am using some of our tax revenues to help bring a major highway through the town and thereby attract new business to Plainsville.

███████████ ██████ ███ ████ ████ █████████ █████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ██ ███ ████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ███ █████ ███████ ████████ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ █ ███ ████████ █████ █████ ██ █████ █████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ████ ████ ███████ ██████

Fact v. Belief v. Knowledge

This stimulus provides an excellent (and somewhat advanced) example of the commonly-tested difference between facts, beliefs, and knowledge. This theme is so common, and recognizing it is so powerful, that if your experience of this question didn’t begin with “Ooh! This is fact v. belief shenanigans!” the takeaway is to train your ability to spot it.

In short, the citizens’ group takes a premise about facts in the world (building a business park would help the economy more than building a highway) and uses it to support conclusions about the mayor’s state of mind (this dude must not care about the economy). But just because something is true in fact doesn’t mean any given person believes it’s true.

Perhaps the mayor does care about the economy, and is simply unaware of the business park option. Or perhaps the mayor disagrees that building a business park would be better for the economy. Both these scenarios emphasize the difference between the facts on the ground and the beliefs in the mayor’s head.

Analysis by MichaelWright

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The argument by the citizens’ █████ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████████████

Plainsville presently has ██ █████ ████████ ███████ ███████ ███

Neither party’s argument is at all affected by whether other highways already exist in Plainsville. Both parties begin with premises about the benefits an additional highway would bring.

The mayor accepts ████ █ ███ ████████ ████ █████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ████████ ████ █████ ███ ███ ████████

The distinction between fact, belief, and knowledge is common enough that you should aspire to recognize it in the stimulus and hunt for it in the answer choices, finding it expressed in (B) by the idea that the mayor must accept (i.e. agree or believe) the citizens’ group’s factual premise.

The new highway █████ ████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████████ █████ ████ ██████████ ███ █████████

(C) is wrong because “no other benefits” is way too broad, mainly because it includes non-economic benefits. In fact, the citizens’ group’s conclusion that the mayor is motivated by non-economic factors actively suggests the existence of non-economic benefits stemming from the highway’s construction.

(C) would be pretty close if it said “the new highway would have no economic benefits…other than attracting new business.” Challenging that assumption would mean there might be other factors that, all things considered, make the highway better for the economy than the business park.

The mayor is ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ███ ███ ███████ ██████████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████████

This is a random additional fact that’s entirely unmoored from anything in the stimulus. Perhaps it’s useful here to recall that you can take a most strongly supported lens on necessary assumption questions as well – correct answers must be implied by the stimulus.

Plainsville’s economy will ███ ██ ██████ ██████ █ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████ ██ ██████

The citizens’ group makes a relative claim – a business park would help the economy more than a highway would.

(E) puts a absolute claim in their mouths – a highway would not help the economy at all.

The citizen’s group does not need to support (E)’s much more extreme position for their argument to succeed.

Difficulty

Question

52% of people who answer get this correct

This is a very difficult question.

CURVE

Score of students with a 50% chance of getting this right

25% 148

162

75% 176

Analysis

Question Stem Tags

Necessary assumption

Stems that ask us to identify a claim that, if NOT true, would entirely undermine the reasoning in the stimulus.

Stimulus Tags

Mental state v. reality

Stimuli that feature a jump from one type of claim (fact, belief, knowledge, intention, etc.) to another in a way that informs our evaluation of the answer choices.

Answer Popularity

Popularity Avg. score

154

52%

166

25%

161

166

22%

159

Question history

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