#13 - Global Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[freddythepup]

Hi,
For this question, can you please explain why E is the better answer. I chose B at first because I thought that both passages talked about the connection between enforcing the social norms in each professional respect, and the incentives that following those social norms have for both comedians and chefs. Is B wrong because Passage B doesn't really talk about "creators of intellectual property"?

I didn't pick E because I didn't believe that either passage specifically talked about social norms taking the place of laws in protecting intellectual property. Can we make that conclusion here? Because I thought both passages talked about how each respective profession didn't have those laws in place (well for comedians they had some laws but they weren't enforced), but it didn't really say that social norms took the place of laws. If you can go into more depth about why we should understand both passages to be this. That will be great. Thank you!

[Brook Miscoski]

Freddy,

The question stem asks you to identify the primary concern of each passage, which should be closely related to the primary purpose of each passage.

Passage A is concerned with the problem of joke theft, and passage B is concerned with recipe theft. Both passages believe that norms, not laws, protect against theft.

In the initial pass, A/C/D are losers because they are off topic, concentrating on legal rights when the authors said that norms, not laws, protected comedians and chefs against theft.

So, you are on the right track. Looking at B/E, the difference is this: In choice (B), norms support legal rights, but in choice (E), norms replace legal rights.

Because each passage says that legal rights don't help, but norms solve the problem, you should pick (E), where norms replace legal rights. Additionally, Passage A states that norms "substitute" (line 5) and Passage B states that norms function similarly to legal rights (line 45-50). You don't need to reference the line numbers, but you can if you like.