PrepTest 157, Section 2, Question 6
Democratic societies in which there is widespread discontent(60 more words not shown)
The case described above best(7 more words not shown)
- AOften the people(24 more words not shown)
- BPeople tend to(19 more words not shown)
- CTo the extent(22 more words not shown)
- DPublicly known people(11 more words not shown)
- EPeople are more(19 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
You can vote a politician out of office. You can't vote a wealthy person out of being wealthy.
That helps explain the distinction the passage draws. Discontented people blame politicians more often than other powerful figures who are at least as responsible for society's problems. We might disagree with that description in real life, but it's the case we're asked to understand. Nor does it make the politicians innocent: the other figures are at least as responsible, not necessarily the only people responsible.
The passage then tells us why the blame falls where it does. Familiarity isn't the main explanation. People feel they can do something about politicians, whereas they feel less control over the other powerful figures. The voting example makes that difference concrete.
What we’re looking for
For the generalization question, carry that relationship into broader language: people are more inclined to blame someone when they feel they have power over that person. Keep track of whose power we're discussing. It's the public's power over the target, not how much power the target possesses.
Working the answers
- A
The passage doesn't rank the people who actually have the most power or compare that ranking with public opinion. It calls politicians and other figures powerful. The point is whom people blame and why, not whether people correctly identify society's most powerful members.
- B
This links familiarity with how much power people attribute to someone. Neither part gives us the explanation we need. The passage concerns the public's feeling of control over the person being blamed, and it specifically says greater familiarity with politicians isn't the primary cause.
- C
This makes being well known the explanation for being blamed. But the passage explicitly moves away from that explanation. Politicians aren't mainly blamed because people know them better; they're blamed because people feel they have more power over them.
- D
This is a judgment that publicly known people aren't held responsible enough. The case doesn't establish what level of blame would be sufficient or that publicly known people usually escape it. We're explaining a pattern of blame, not deciding how much blame public figures deserve.
- ECorrect
People are more inclined to blame someone over whom they feel they have power. That is precisely the explanation given for the difference between politicians and other powerful people. The generalization preserves the direction of control: the people assigning blame feel power over its recipient.
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