In the Wealth of Nations (1776), Scottish economist Adam Smith...

Q2: A closer look at who's concerned with "human nature"

In the second paragraph, the author never claims that credit, promisees, and trust are part of human nature.

Instead, the author focuses explicitly on the language that people in early modern England used when doing business. The author points to this use of language as something that the typical view (which does depend on a Smith-like view of human nature) fails to consider:


I hope this clarifies why we eliminate (B). Choice (E) is much better supported by the passage, and directly answers the question that we're being asked: What have these economic historians failed to examine?

Q3: Why did the author write this passage?

You've got a good grasp of the passage! When we want to state the primary concern of a passage, we're basically asking, "Why, overall, did the author write this thing?"

Breaking it down once more:

• The author wrote paragraph 1 to present today's typical view of what the development of business relations did to village communities (and to tell us that that view is informed by Smith's work).
• The author wrote paragraph 2 to explain how today's typical view has failed to take into account language used in these village communities.

So the author wrote this passage to raise doubts about how business relations during early modern England are perceived today. Note that the main concern here is not Adam Smith. It's the conventional wisdom that his work helped to create.


Let's be careful here. Yes, the author is evaluating modern views of business relations during early modern England. However, what does answer choice (B) say?


"Evaluating modern views" is not the same as "Evaluating the impact of a particular economist." The author mentions Smith to help us understand the modern view, but as a whole this passage evaluates the view of early modern England's business relations and how we come to believe it -- not Smith's impact on modern theories. As explained earlier, that's why we eliminate (B).


I'm not quite sure what you mean by this hypothetical statement. To stick with the passage as it's written, the author is telling us that today's typical view fails to account for important information that could change our understanding of business relations in early modern England. The passage pushes us to question this view and consider a different interpretation of business relations.


This closely matches our understanding of why the author wrote this passage, and that's why (D) is the best answer choice as it's written.

Q1: The Question is "Why?"

As usual, when I'm asked for help with a specific question type, I don't have a very satisfying answer.

The key to RC is how well you read the passage: if you do a bulletproof job of reading for structure and purpose, then it will become easier to see how a specific detail fits in with the purpose of a paragraph or with the overall purpose of the passage. (More on these general ideas here.)

At the end of the day, this kind of question basically asks, "Why does the author mention this detail?"

This is very different from asking questions like:

• "Does the author mention this detail?"
• "Do you see this detail in the passage?"
• "Would the author agree with this detail?"

This distinction may seem obvious, but in practice it can be tough to stay focused on the author's purpose, especially when you're under time pressure. If you're only looking for details that seem like they were in the passage, or kind of fit with things the author might say, then you'll have a very hard time eliminating wrong answer choices. So always remember that you're looking for the answer choice that best explains why the author has brought up the detail in this exact part of the passage.

I hope this all helps!