PrepTest 149 - Section 2 - Passage 3 - Question 20

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Passage A.

Phenomenon · Comedians don't use copyright law to protect their jokes from theft

Hypothesis · Filing lawsuits is too expensive to protect jokes

Costs include both actual costs and legal uncertainty about how copyright law applies to joke stealing.

Phenomenon · Despite no legal protection against joke theft, comedians still write lots of jokes

That's unexpected. Conventional wisdom would say that without legal protection, comedians wouldn't write jokes. But conventional wisdom is wrong.

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Hypothesis · Social norms protect from joke theft

Norms are enforced by punishments, such as damage to reputation.

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Intro topic · Chefs don't use law to protect their recipes

Intellectual property law usually doesn't cover recipes, and chefs rarely use trade secrecy laws.

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Social norms · Chefs protect recipes by three social norms

(Just like how Passage A said comedians use social norms to protect their jokes.)

Norm 1 · Don't copy another chef's recipe exactly

Functions like patent protection for something innovative.

Norm 2 · If secret recipe is revealed, don't pass it to someone else

Functions like trade secrecy protection.

Norm 3 · Give credit to people who developed recipes

Functions like copyright protection.

Passage Style

20.

Which one of the following, ██ █████ █████ ████ ███████ ███████ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██

Question Type

WSE (RC)

Passage B argues that social norms among chefs function in a way that’s similar to law-based intellectual property systems. It’s difficult to come up with a strong anticipation, so let’s rely on process of elimination. We want to support the idea that chefs’ social norms can help protect their recipes.

There is no ██████ ████ ██████████ █████ ████ █████ █████████████ ███████ ██ ████████████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███████ ███ ███ ██████ ████████

This doesn’t support the argument, because it doesn’t connect social norms to greater protection of recipes. (A) tells us that there’s no norm against getting inspiration, but it doesn’t help show that the norms that do exist are effective in protecting recipes.

29%

Chefs are significantly ████ ██████ ██ ████ █████████ ███████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ████ ███████ ████ ████████ ███ █████████ ██████ ██████

This strengthens Passage B’s argument by showing that there’s a negative consequence to violating norms. This suggests that norm violations are accompanied with some kind of punishment, which reasonably makes the norms more effective at protecting recipes. (Imagine if nobody was ever punished for violating a norm — then the norms wouldn’t be effective at protecting recipes. So it strengthens the argument to learn that there is some kind of punishment for violating norms.)

64%

Recipes published in █████████ ███ █████████ ██ █████████ ███ ████ █████ █████████ ██ █████ ██████████

The argument concerns the effectiveness of norms, not the effectiveness of copyright law. So (C) doesn’t help Passage B’s argument.

The community of █████ ██ ███ █████ ██ ███████████ ███████ █████████ ███████ █████ ███ ███████ ███ █████████ ██████ ██████

This weakens the argument by suggesting the norms aren’t effective at protecting recipes.

In practice it ██ █████████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ███████ █ ████ ███ ██████ █ █████████████ ██████ ███████ ██ ███ ███████ █████████████ █████████ ████ ███████

This weakens the argument by suggesting it’s difficult to tell whether someone has violated a norm. This makes the norms less effective at protecting recipes.

PrepTest 149 - Section 2 - Passage 3 - Question 20

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