#19 - Must Be True, Author’s Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=13649)

The correct answer choice is (D)

Both passages deal with the idea that people have a natural inclination to want more than their neighbors, and this question asks for the choice with the two authors’ likely description of such people.

Answer choice (A): The first author would not describe such a person as insular, and the second would not describe such a person as cosmopolitan, so this choice is wrong on both counts and can be confidently ruled out of contention.

Answer choice (B): Wanting more than your neighbor is hardly altruistic, and the second author believes that the drive for more has honorable foundations, so this choice can be ruled out on both counts.

Answer choice (C): The first author would not necessarily agree that a person with a drive for greater relative prosperity is necessarily happy, and the second author would say that such a drive has a beneficial basis, not likely agreeing that any such person must be miserable.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. The first author would agree with the characterization “misguided,” and points out that we cannot foresee how we will adjust our expectations even as we acquire more material goods, so we over-acquire material things leaving less resources to spend on leisure.

Answer choice (E): There is nothing in the first passage to support the notion that the author would characterize such a person as lucky, and while the second author does mention the theory regarding an underlying biological drive, the author would not describe a person who wants greater relative prosperity as primitive. As such, this cannot be the right answer choice to this Must Be True question.

[reop6780]

The correct answer is D.

Personally "admirable" for the attitude of passage B appeared exaggerated.

Where can I find evidence for such attitude?

Also, for the future reference, is it okay for me to post the subject as "Prep test 70" instead of "October 2013" ?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi reop6780!

Passage B author argues that it isn't that people want to "one-up" their neighbors or create more wealth, per se. He argues that actually people want to create value. In lines 64-65, he states: "Wanting to create value benefits society." Therefore, since the author thinks that someone who wants to make more money than his or her neighbors wants to create value and that wanting to create value benefits the society, the author has an admirable attitude toward people who want to make more money than their neighbors. He thinks they are benefitting society.

It helps if you post the month and the year for the practice exams. If you'd like to, you can include the month, year, and prep test number!

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[bli2016]

Hi,

Wondering what specific information in Passage A lends it to describe a person who wants to make more money than his/her neighbors "misguided"?

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi bli2016,

The first paragraph, which identifies that people do not get happier as they get richer, supports the view that it is misguided. Hope that helps!

[JoshuaDEL]

Hi bli2016,

The first paragraph, which identifies that people do not get happier as they get richer, supports the view that it is misguided. Hope that helps!

Hello, I understood the "admirable" part from the earlier explanations but I'm also still confused about the "misguided" part. The first paragraph seemed to me as a description of a phenomenon, as you have mentioned, where people do not get happier as they get richer, and then an introduction to the main reasons why that is the case. The question was asking not about a person who's trying to get richer in absolute terms, but about a person who's trying to do so in relative terms. My prephrase for passage A was something neutral (ex. natural or common or comprehensible) because passage A seemed to be just describing various explanations to that phenomenon.

Regarding the first explanation quoting "We do not foresee how we adjust to material possessions [...]", I'm not sure how that is relevant to this question. The sentence preceding it says "We do not have the same experience with other aspects of our lives." which makes the first quotation seem like a description of a difference between money and material possession. I may be misunderstanding that part of the passage so I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thank you in advance

[Adam Tyson]

I know how you feel about this one, JoshuaDEL, and everyone else who thought "misguided" was a little more negative than what we prephrased. I felt the same way, and I also had prephrased "normal" and was confused when I didn't find a good pair in the answers. But there is some evidence to support the author thinking those people who value relative wealth are misguided.

First, there is the text we have already quoted in this thread: the key word being "overinvest," rather than just "invest." The prefix "over" indicates that people who behave this way are making a mistake.

Second, there is the claim that people who preferred lower incomes that were higher in relative terms were "happy to be poorer." While the author doesn't explicitly say so, that choice of words certainly implies that those people are misguided.

Finally, there's the East Germany example in the last paragraph, where living conditions have improved dramatically but happiness has gone down because of the comparison to others. Again, that implies that the author thinks those people are misguided in feeling that way, that they should instead be happy for how much better off they are compared to where they had been.

The toughest thing about this answer choice is that it is all based on implications and not on anything explicit. It's the cumulative effect of all of those statements that should lead us to accept that the author sees this phenomenon of rivalry to be misguided. And ultimately, while we might not love this answer, we have to select it because it's the best answer of the bunch we were offered.