PrepTest 145, Section 1, Question 13

Working the answers

• A
  Correct

  Reducing a penalty because the company might close would introduce another limiting consideration beyond the economists' stated calculation. Their insistence on the sole criterion supports excluding that possibility as a separate factor in determining the fine.

• B

  This changes the task from setting penalties to assigning moral weight. The economists reject moral weight as a factor in punishment; they do not explain which evidence someone should use to judge a crime's moral weight itself.

• C

  The exception after “unless” permits moral offensiveness to affect the penalty when it makes the fine larger. The economists exclude that factor rather than accepting it whenever it pushes punishment upward.

• D

  The likelihood of reoffending is not identified as the main criterion. Their stated method concerns the gain and cost of crime, rather than replacing that calculation with this probability alone.

• E

  The text gives no rule that fines must rise in direct proportion to prior convictions. That history-based schedule is different from the stated cost-benefit method. We cannot substitute it merely because both could produce larger penalties.