PrepTest 141, Section 3, Question 16
Passage A Research concerning happiness and wealth reveals(487 more words not shown)
Passage A(297 more words not shown)
Passage B(198 more words not shown)
The author of passage B(13 more words not shown)
- AThe desire to(15 more words not shown)
- BVery few people(16 more words not shown)
- CBeing wealthier than(18 more words not shown)
- DGradual increases in(8 more words not shown)
- EThe overall level(12 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
B's chain is income as evidence of success, success as evidence of creating value, and the feeling of success as the source of happiness. Keep the middle steps. It is not simply more money, therefore more happiness.
What we’re looking for
If someone thought the money came purely from luck, it would not show that they had accomplished something valuable. That gives us a concrete way to test what follows from B's explanation.
Working the answers
- A
This is the biological account introduced and then judged less well supported by the evidence. B's preferred explanation appeals to perceived success and value creation. Reporting the competing theory does not amount to endorsing it.
- B
B does not make this claim about how few people would accept the trade. The shared study actually reports that a majority chose lower income for a better relative position, so the answer does not follow from B's discussion.
- CCorrect
If the person attributes the extra wealth merely to luck, it supplies no evidence of personal success in creating value. That removes the link B says produces the happiness. The inference follows from the explanation, rather than from a general rule that money can never make people happy.
- D
A discusses how the rate of wage increases relates to job satisfaction. B does not address gradual wage increases, and we cannot transfer A's finding to B merely because both discuss income.
- E
B explains an individual's happiness through perceived success. It does not conclude that a society's overall happiness usually rises with its wealth. That aggregate claim is a different relationship.
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