PrepTest 138, Section 1, Question 17
David Warsh's book describes a great contradiction inherent(451 more words not shown)
The main purpose of the(4 more words not shown)
- Acritique a theory(9 more words not shown)
- Bexplain a difficulty(7 more words not shown)
- Coutline the intuitions(5 more words not shown)
- Ddescribe the tensions(9 more words not shown)
- Erefute an argument(5 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The fourth paragraph answers why the Pin Factory was de-emphasized. Economists wanted rigorous mathematical models, but increasing returns were hard to represent that way. Diminishing returns offered the easier mathematical path.
What we’re looking for
That is the obstacle this paragraph explains. The final paragraph then describes repeated attempts to overcome it and the eventual breakthrough. Keep the obstacle and its later resolution in their proper places.
Working the answers
- A
No proposed theory for reconciling the two assumptions is examined and criticized here. The paragraph explains why economists favored the mathematically easier assumption.
- BCorrect
Increasing returns are the economic assumption, and their resistance to rigorous mathematical representation is the difficulty. The contrast with diminishing returns explains how that difficulty affected which ideas became mainstream.
- C
The paragraph isn't laying out intuitive reasons to believe increasing returns occur. The earlier factory example does that work. Here the concern is how hard the idea is to represent formally.
- D
The tension between increasing returns and the Invisible Hand was established in the third paragraph: greater scale threatens competition. The fourth discusses a modeling obstacle, not a new tension caused by attempts to model both ideas.
- E
We aren't given an argument against increasing returns that the paragraph disproves. Explaining why an idea was neglected is different from refuting a reason to believe it is false.
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