Q4

[joann.wang.2]

I always struggle with these inference questions about what the author would "most likely agree with"...

Ultimately, I can't find support in the passage of when it would be okay for one person's preferences to be more important than the majority's. Isn't the idea of Rawls's theory to be fair?

My answer was C, primarily because of the last sentence, lines 51-55. Upon reviewing, I think I need to cross this off because it's an issue that the author takes with Rawls's theory, but Rawls wouldn't necessarily agree with C. Is that why it is the wrong choice?

I think I'm just primarily concerned that I wasn't able to extrapolate answer choice A from the passage. I really just don't see the "as more important" aspect of it..

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Author Opinion

Answer expected in lines/paragraph:
line 13 (Rawls ACCORDINGLY complains that), line 19 "ingenious", line 25-26 "clever"

Any prephrase?
On normal "author most likely to agree", we would prioritize re-reading any section of the passage we felt like was "the author's Opinion Zone". In THIS case, it's a very weird stem asking where Rawls AND the author would agree. We need line references of them agreeing, and line 13 seems to be the closest explicit agreement ("accordingly" indicates that the author shares Rawls' view)

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:

(A) YES. This sounds like line 13. Rawls and the author do not like utiliarianism because it would potentially let a mob kill an individual, since we're making more people happy with the mob. Rawls and the author COMPLAIN that "the liberty of the few might be violated by the greater good of the many". Hence, they would say (in flipsy-do Inference language) that "the liberty of the few is more important than the greater good of the many".

(B) Extreme: "unless" / they "cannot". Rawls system still involves self-interest (line 40-41)

(C) The AUTHOR (alone) says something close to this in the final sentence, but it is specifically about PRIMARY goods.

(D) Extreme: "most" / "most". Neither person said that over 50% of people will concur on the #1 primary good.

(E) This is the logical opposite of (A). Rawls and the author do NOT agree with this, according to line 13.

Takeaway/Pattern: Typically, open-ended questions that ask "inferred / implies / suggests / most likely to agree" we have some answer choices with obvious too strong language. Here, B/C/D/E are all very strong claims, whereas (A) is the easiest idea to support, since you only need one situation to justify it.

#officialexplanation

[AnnaC659]

Question Type:
Author Opinion

Answer expected in lines/paragraph:
line 13 (Rawls ACCORDINGLY complains that), line 19 "ingenious", line 25-26 "clever"

Any prephrase?
On normal "author most likely to agree", we would prioritize re-reading any section of the passage we felt like was "the author's Opinion Zone". In THIS case, it's a very weird stem asking where Rawls AND the author would agree. We need line references of them agreeing, and line 13 seems to be the closest explicit agreement ("accordingly" indicates that the author shares Rawls' view)

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:

(A) YES. This sounds like line 13. Rawls and the author do not like utiliarianism because it would potentially let a mob kill an individual, since we're making more people happy with the mob. Rawls and the author COMPLAIN that "the liberty of the few might be violated by the greater good of the many". Hence, they would say (in flipsy-do Inference language) that "the liberty of the few is more important than the greater good of the many".

(B) Extreme: "unless" / they "cannot". Rawls system still involves self-interest (line 40-41)

(C) The AUTHOR (alone) says something close to this in the final sentence, but it is specifically about PRIMARY goods.

(D) Extreme: "most" / "most". Neither person said that over 50% of people will concur on the #1 primary good.

(E) This is the logical opposite of (A). Rawls and the author do NOT agree with this, according to line 13.

Takeaway/Pattern: Typically, open-ended questions that ask "inferred / implies / suggests / most likely to agree" we have some answer choices with obvious too strong language. Here, B/C/D/E are all very strong claims, whereas (A) is the easiest idea to support, since you only need one situation to justify it.

#officialexplanation

I just have a question with answer choice (C). I thought the author would disagree with this idea (while Rawl agrees) because of lines 51-55 where he says the content of answer choice C is "Unfortunately" an inherently redistributionist idea - I thought that word indicated him expressing his disagreement.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

We couldn't say that Rawls agrees, because Rawls was talking about PRIMARY GOODS, not any ol' good.

Rawls isn't saying, "If a person lacks an Xbox, then society must provide this good."

(C) is too general / too extreme.

To your other point, we can't say that the author disagrees just because of the "unfortunately". You sometimes consider things a 'necessary evil' and you say, "Unfortunately, my darling daughter, you need to take your yucky penicillin in order to get yourself healthy again."

So labeling something unfortunate doesn't necessarily indicate that you think we shouldn't do it.

Hope this helps.