PrepTest 148, Section 2, Question 3
The following passage is adapted from a journal(460 more words not shown)
The author's primary purpose in(4 more words not shown)
- Ashow why a(4 more words not shown)
- Bdescribe the novel(8 more words not shown)
- Csketch the historical(5 more words not shown)
- Ddebate the pros(6 more words not shown)
- Eargue for the(5 more words not shown)
Reading the passage
We've already predicted the main point: Rawls offers a different way to think about justice, using a fair procedure rather than simply maximizing satisfaction. The writer mainly explains that approach. The praise and final reservation matter, but they don't turn the account into a sustained argument that we should adopt or reject the theory.
What we’re looking for
The problem Rawls addresses is also clear: if maximizing satisfaction can permit injustice, and people disagree about the good life, what can establish fair principles? His answer is an agreed fair procedure under the veil of ignorance.
Working the answers
- A
Utilitarianism supplies the background problem. Explaining why it was historically abandoned is not the main task, and we aren't given a history of its abandonment.
- BCorrect
Rawls's novel response is to focus on the fairness of the procedure by which principles are chosen. The cake and original-position examples explain how that response works. This matches both the descriptive purpose and the problem being addressed.
- C
We aren't tracing stages in the development of Rawls's theory. Moving from background to explanation is not a historical account of how he developed it.
- D
There is praise and a reservation, but no extended weighing of competing benefits and drawbacks. Calling the whole account a debate overstates the brief criticism at the end.
- E
Describing a theory sympathetically is different from arguing that it is true. The writer explains Rawls's approach while retaining a concern about its implications.
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