PrepTest 139, Section 2, Question 7
Over the past 50 years, expansive, low-density communities(429 more words not shown)
The second paragraph most strongly(14 more words not shown)
- AMost of those(15 more words not shown)
- BZoning regulations often(8 more words not shown)
- CCity dwellers who(13 more words not shown)
- DFew residents of(18 more words not shown)
- EPeople generally prefer(16 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
The planners move from similarly priced houses to economically similar residents. But house price and total wealth aren't the same thing. Someone with millions in the bank could buy an inexpensive home and live beside someone who stretched financially to buy a comparable house.
What we’re looking for
For house prices to tell us much about residents' economic circumstances, that kind of large gap between what people can afford and what they spend can't be the usual pattern. Predict a link between housing expenditure and buying power.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Most suburban buyers don't spend drastically less than they can afford. That helps the planners treat similar house prices as evidence of similar economic circumstances. It doesn't require everyone to take out the largest possible mortgage or spend every available dollar. The needed connection is weaker than that: inexpensive houses shouldn't routinely conceal much greater buying power.
- B
This describes zoning producing the opposite economic result: greater diversity. It doesn't supply the missing link between similar prices and economic separation.
- C
City residents' hostility toward motorists has no bearing on whether home prices reveal suburban residents' wealth.
- D
Knowledge of walking's health benefits doesn't connect housing prices to economic circumstances. The relevant claim concerns segregation, not why people drive.
- E
A preference for similarly designed houses might help explain visual uniformity. It still tells us nothing about whether the people buying those houses have similar amounts of money.
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