Q17

[obobob]

17. Which one of the following laws would conform most closely to the position articulated ...

Can somebody explain for the correct answer for this Q?

While solving this question, I thought
(A): Passage A would disagree,
(B): Passage A & B would disagree,
(C): Passage A never mentions it,
(D): Out of scope (or Passage A didn't really ask about the differentiating of the two mentioned here),
(E): Not sure what will be Passage A's reaction will be like about "as long as that information is not acquired by theft or other unlawful means."

maybe the correct answer is the only one that Passage A can partially agree with? is that the reason why E is the correct answer?

[ohthatpatrick]

I always start an RC question by trying to answer the question in my own words or in the passage's provided words.

In this case, the big difference between psg A and psg B was this:

A: Insider trading (and non-trading) are fine. Both things are an extension of the natural activity of playing the stock market: trying to gain an informational advantage over other players so that you can maximize your gain

B: Insider trading is not cool. For people to trust that the stock market is a level playing field, they need to feel like all investors are working off a shared set of facts (and the only difference in investing performance is based on how shrewd one is about analyzing and acting on those facts)

So a law that legalized insider trading would conform to A but not conform to B.


(A) This agrees with B.

(B) This agrees with B.

(C) This agrees with B.

(D) This doesn't agree with B (who is against inside information), but it doesn't really agree with A. The author of psg A never made a distinction between inside trading being fine when you're selling high but not when you're buying low.

(E) Yup, this works and sounds somewhat like our prephrase. Psg A was in favor of insider trading and Psg B was not.

The new language in (E) about "acquired by theft or other unlawful means" is kinda new, but common sense tells us that psg A was only saying that you should be able to use the knowledge you have "because of your special position within a company" (line 4-5).

This author also says in 14-15, "That [insider trading] doesn't make you a criminal; it means you've done your homework".

So we can also use that line to understand that Psg A isn't legitimizing ANY means of gaining upper hand information.

Perhaps most importantly, (E) is the best available answer, and it's the one that would resonate with our big picture understanding of the central difference between the argument in psg A and that in psg B.

Hope this helps.