PrepTest 146, Section 3, Question 4
According to economists, people's tendency to purchase a(56 more words not shown)
The claim that more steel(19 more words not shown)
- AIt is described(10 more words not shown)
- BIt is described(12 more words not shown)
- CIt is used(15 more words not shown)
- DIt is the(13 more words not shown)
- EIt is cited(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Cheaper steel gives people a reason to buy more of it. If you need steel for building or manufacturing, a lower price can make another project affordable. That fits the economists' rule: when the price falls, purchases tend to rise.
Lace is different in the example. Part of its attraction was showing that its wearer could afford something expensive. Once machines made it widely affordable, it lost that status value, and the market collapsed. Making it cheaper undercut a reason people wanted it in the first place.
What we’re looking for
So the two examples do different jobs. Steel shows the familiar pattern; lace gives the exception. One exception is enough to support the author's conclusion that the rule doesn't hold in every case. The role question asks about steel, so keep its job separate from the lace example that supports the final qualification.
Working the answers
- A
This describes treating the steel case as an unsuccessful attempt to show that the conclusion is false. Since the conclusion says there are exceptions, that would mean discussing steel as inadequate evidence that there are no exceptions. The author doesn't make that move. Steel simply illustrates the ordinary price-and-purchase pattern before the exception is introduced.
- B
Lace is the exception: its lower price went with a collapsing market. Steel fits the generalization, because the lower price went with more purchases. B assigns steel the role played by the other example.
- CCorrect
Steel illustrates the economists' general rule, which the author then shows doesn't hold in all cases. More steel was bought when it became cheaper. The subsequent lace example qualifies the rule without changing what the steel example illustrates.
- D
The passage doesn't tell us how economists first arrived at their rule. It gives steel as an example, not as an account of the evidence that led economists to embrace a hypothesis. D adds that history to the argument.
- E
Steel isn't one of the reasons the author gives for qualifying the rule. It behaves just as the rule predicts. Lace supplies the reason to recognize an exception. E confuses an example that fits the generalization with evidence that calls for limiting it.
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