- Tue Feb 13, 2024 2:49 pm
#105288
legalkitty,
The question gives me a huge hint as to where to go, and this isn't uncommon among RC questions! It says the economists "defend" their concept. Where do they defend anything? "Defense" at least normally implies a response to or preparation for an attack. Go back to the structure of the passage, something you would have been examining while reading the passage itself. The first paragraph gives us a position of the economists, then an attack from the critics. No defense yet - the economists just barely got to give their view before an opposing view came up. They don't have a chance to "defend" anything yet. The passage goes on in the first paragraph to give the author's view. The author gives an example in the second paragraph in line with his/her view. The third paragraph gives more about the critics' viewpoint...still no "defense" from the economists! FINALLY, in the last paragraph, the economists get to respond...and then halfway through the paragraph, we get the author's cutting down of this defense. All of this is stuff I would have noticed while reading the passage, and it greatly simplifies question #4. The ONLY time the economists express anything that could be called a "defense" is in the first half of the last paragraph. That's therefore the only place I need to look.
In that place, the economists say that their definition of prosperity is better because it lacks a disadvantage of the critics' definition - the critics' is not easily quantifiable. That leads to answer choice (A).
Robert Carroll
