#14 - Global Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[freddythepup]

Hi, can you please explain why C is the answer here? Because the way I read passage B, I thought that it also discussed the enforcement of social norms. Thanks.

[Malila Robinson]

Hi Freddythepup,
The key to Answer C is "enforcement" as you stated. In Passage A it states that the social norms are enforced with sanctions. In Passage B it states that social norms are implicit, which means they are implied and understood/generally accepted by other chefs, but nothing is stated about the enforcement of these implicit social norms.
Hope that helps!
-Malila

[dbrowning]

Hi, I see why 'C' is the correct answer for this question. However, under timed conditions, I chose 'E', because Passage A posed the question "then why do thousands of comedians keep cranking out new material night after night?". I interpreted the following answer as an "impact of social norms on creative output", which certainly is not present in Passage B. Did I just make too much of a stretch to make that inference?

[Brook Miscoski]

dbrowning,

Since both passages discuss norms, this can be tricky. The problem with (E) is that both passages are clearly discussing the role of norms in creative output. In passage (A), norms affect how comedians create; in passage (B), norms affect how chefs create. So it's not that you made a stretch in describing Passage A, it's that the whole point of both passages was to discuss (E). You got too focused on line references when doing a global reference question.

[ShannonOh22]

I too chose E for this question, because passage A specifically mentions comedians coming up with new material twice...ln 21-23 "why do thousands of comedians keep cranking out new material night after night?" and the end of the passage ln 37-38 "and maintain substantial incentives to invest in new material".

Passage B contains nothing about chefs' recipe creation being in jeopardy, it just outlines the three ways in which the social norms prevent other chefs from committing the equivalent of copyright infringement. Passage B doesn't specifically discuss creative output at all. Is there something I've missed from a global perspective that would help me arrive at the correct answer here?

[Paul Marsh]

Hi Shannon! You're right that Passage A explicitly discusses the impact of social norms on creative output. But so does Passage B. The second paragraph of Passage B follows this basic pattern: List social norm, then discuss the impact of that social norm. It does this three times. The sentence following the enumeration of the first social norm is the real nail in the coffin for answer choice (E): "The function of this norm is analogous to patenting in that the community acknowledges the right of a recipe inventor to exclude others from practicing his or her invention, even if all the information required to do so is publicly available." This sentence explicitly states how the impact of the social norm is to limit the creative output of someone who has not invented the recipe.

On the other hand, there is nothing in Passage B about how these norms are enforced. This makes answer choice (C) the correct response. Hope that helps!

[pmuffley]

Hello - this one was tricky for me. Like everyone else I chose E incorrectly.

The following quote is from passage B. How is this not talking about enforcing social norms? Yes, it is describing a function. However, that function is based on exclusion.

"The function of this norm is analogous to patenting in that the community acknowledges the right of a recipe inventor to exclude others from practicing his or her invention, even if all the information required to do so is publicly available. "

[Adam Tyson]

For passage B to discuss enforcing social norms, pmuffley, it would have to discuss what happens to people who violate those norms. What are the repercussions for a chef who uses another's recipe without permission or attribution? We don't know, because passage B never says! It tells us that the norms are analogous to various law-based approaches but never gets into penalties the way passage A does when it talks about bad-mouthing and refusing to work together.

The section you described tells us what the norms are, but not how they are enforced. How do chefs make sure these norms are followed? How are violations punished? We aren't told, and that makes C the perfect answer.

[momog230]

Hi. I am not sure how the second passage discusses "creative output." It never specifically mentions the impact that patent/copyright laws have. Maybe they are just laws which are intended to make the process of intellectual property fair- "I have the right to my intellectual property and no one else does"- similar to regular property. Only the first passage specifically states that the purpose (or at least the indirect impact) of intellectual property laws is to encourage creative material!

Regarding the sentence that Paul discussed above in which the author states "The function of this norm is analogous to patenting in that the community acknowledges the right of a recipe inventor to exclude others from practicing his or her invention, even if all the information required to do so is publicly available," the author is not discussing the impact on "creative output" (I.e. the improvement or reduction of creative recipes), rather simply that people can not copy original recipes!

So I'm quite stuck on this one. Would appreciate your help on this. Thanks!