PrepTest 119 - Section 1 - Passage 1 - Question 5

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Economists have long defined prosperity in terms of monetary value, gauging a given nation's prosperity solely on the basis of the total monetary value of the goods and services produced annually. ███

Economists' perspective · Measure nation's prosperity based on monetary value of stuff nation produces

Critics' perspective · There are other values (besides money) important to prosperity

Such as qualify of life and environmental health.

Example Supporting Critics · Things that reduce QOL and environmental health can lead to increased monetary value

Weakening ozone layer leads to sales of hats, sunglasses, and sunscreens. Economists would measure this as increase in prosperity, when it's actually a decrease.

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Risk of Economists' Perspective · People can try to increase monetary value but hurt QOL and environment.

In one case, a small town opposed limits on cutting down trees, because it thought limits would decrease wages and jobs.

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Critics' Perspective (on town example) · The town loses a lot more without the limits

Without limits, their land would be damaged. This hurts something the town clearly values. Also, you can understand the value of the land in monetary terms; the town still loses more from forgoing limits on cutting trees.

Economists' rebuttal · Prosperity needs to be quantifiable

Critique · But prosperity involves non-quantifiable values

Analogizes economists' position. They're like literary critics who (mistakenly) think sales are a better measure of a book's value than the literary quality of the book.

Passage Style

Critique or debate

The author compares the economists' ████████ ██ ████ ██ █ ████████ ██████ ██████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████████ ██

Question Type

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

Structure

The purpose of the literary critic analogy in P4 is to highlight a weakness in the economists’ concept of prosperity. Just like a literary critic overlooks true literary merit by reducing a book’s value to its total sales, the economists overlook true prosperity by reducing the concept to monetary value.

introduce the idea ████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ██ █████████ ██████████

The author never suggests that the worth of books or of prosperity is basically subjective. Instead, she uses this analogy to argue that the assessment of a nation’s prosperity— like the assessment of a book’s value— should not be reduced to monetary value, but should include other “substantive issues.”

advocate an innovative ██████ ██ █████████ ████████ █████

The author applies the analogy to the economists’ argument about prosperity. She uses the measure a book’s value to make a point about the measure of prosperity. She isn’t actually making a point about literary merit; it’s just an example to illustrate a weakness in the economists’ position.

suggest that quality ██ ████ ██ ██████ ██ █████████ █████

The author doesn’t mention aesthetics at all in this analogy, nor does she suggest that quality of life is an aesthetic issue. Instead, she suggests that it’s relevant to the measure of prosperity— prosperity is not found merely in monetary value, just like a book’s value is not found merely in its total sales.

provide additional evidence ████ ██████████ ██████ ██ ██████████

The economists argue that prosperity must be measured in easily quantifiable terms. But the author never suggests that prosperity can’t be quantified at all. She just uses this analogy to suggest that true prosperity can’t be measured by looking solely at monetary value.

illustrate the limitations ██ ███ ███████████ ████████

The author uses this analogy to illustrate a limitation of the economists’ concept of prosperity: you can’t measure true prosperity by looking only at monetary value, just like you can’t measure true literary merit by looking only at a book’s total sales.

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PrepTest 119 - Section 1 - Passage 1 - Question 5

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