PrepTest 147, Section 1, Question 3
In recent decades, government efforts to fight counterfeiting(33 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(13 more words not shown)
- AGovernment information campaigns(16 more words not shown)
- BGovernments are continually(13 more words not shown)
- CCounterfeiters are generally(16 more words not shown)
- DGovernment success in(19 more words not shown)
- EGovernments are spending(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe the fake bills get caught later. A merchant could accept one at the register, and a bank could find it during a later check. Successfully removing counterfeits from circulation doesn't necessarily mean catching them the moment someone first hands them over.
What we’re looking for
That's how I'd try to reconcile these facts. Governments are doing a good job fighting counterfeiting, especially by removing fake bills. Yet counterfeiters still find it easy to get merchants and even banks to accept those bills. The second fact makes me question any assumption that the successful cleanup happens right at the initial exchange.
Working the answers
- A
More effective information campaigns would seem to make merchants and tellers better at spotting fake bills. That could help explain successful detection, but it doesn't explain why handing over a fake bill remains so easy. It points toward the result we would have expected, rather than accounting for the surprising result.
- B
Making new currency difficult to counterfeit helps explain why counterfeiting might be hard to carry out successfully. But creating a fake bill and getting someone to accept that bill are separate steps. Even if producing a convincing fake is difficult, we still need to know why counterfeiters can so easily pass the fakes they do produce.
- C
The counterfeiters' awareness of how rare fake bills have become doesn't tell us why merchants and tellers accept them. A counterfeiter could know perfectly well that very few bills in circulation are fake and still try to pass one. What matters for this puzzle is why the people receiving those bills fail to catch them.
- DCorrect
This gives us a different explanation from the later-checking possibility: the government's success has made people less careful. A merchant might think, 'Hardly any fake bills are circulating now, so why spend so much time checking every fifty-dollar bill?' If tellers and merchants relax their checks, a counterfeiter can slip a fake bill past them more easily. The two facts now fit together because the success itself encourages the behavior that makes passing a counterfeit easy. A problem becoming rare doesn't mean it has disappeared.
- E
Spending more on removing counterfeits could help explain the government's success. It doesn't explain the other half of the puzzle: why merchants and banks still accept fake bills so readily. We'd need something about how the money is used or how people react to the cleanup before this could explain that result.
More Paradox questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Paradox questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.