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I got 1 and 3 wrong. Can someone care to explain?

But, I was able to crack 2,4,5.

2. The question in lines 24-27 functions primarily as

Lines 24-27:
What is the minimum prize that would be required to make a gamble involving a 50 percent chance of losing $100 and a 50 percent chance of winning the prize acceptable?
The passage then further describes how much risk one was willing to take in relation to the reward.

Crossed out A, D, and E since they have no relation to what has been said.

(B) a rhetorical question whose assumed answer is in conflict with the previously accepted view concerning risk-taking behavior
There was nothing that suggested that there was a rhetorical question. Out.


(C) the basis for an illustration of how the previously accepted view concerning risk taking behavior applies accurately to some types of situations
Yes. The passage then uses a situation to illustrate red-hot decision making, suggesting the decisions were not the best.




4. The passage can be most accurately described as

Paragraph 1 introduces the idea of gambling. Paragraph 2 explains research behind risk taking. Paragraph 3 explains how some risk taking is not at all rational using examples.
Only answer choice D fits with this reasoning.

D) an examination of some new psychological considerations regarding risk and their application to another field of inquiry

5. The passage most clearly suggests that the author would agree with which one of the following statements?

As noted from question 4, paragraph 3 states that taking a lot of risk for not a lot of reward is irrational. Thus, the author would most likely agree with answer choice C.

(C) It can reasonably be argued that the risk that Britain accepted in its 1982 conflict with Argentina outweighed the potential objectively measurable benefit of that venture.
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Explanation

4. The passage can be most accurately described as

Explanation

Even when the wording may not explicitly evoke the Global category, always keep an eye out for questions that ask for an overall summary. (D) has it all, picking up on both the focus on the recent research findings and the author’s interest in their impact on the “other field of inquiry,” that of governmental decision-making.

(A) is most notable for what it lacks: namely, any reference to new findings or the decision-making of governments. Also, to say that researchers have analyzed psychology is not to say that a report (like this passage) on their findings is itself “a psychological analysis.” (B)’s “political test case” is obviously meant to be the 1982 war, but (B) misrepresents that detail, which is included to illustrate the applicability of the recent findings and not to test whether those findings apply.

(C) implies an advocacy purpose on the part of the author, which is (maybe) hinted at in the last sentence only, and if anything, the author wants political science to take psychology into account, not vice versa. (E), like other wrong choices we’ve seen, seems to think that there is some sort of conflict or dichotomy at the heart of the passage, when in fact both are cited as valid. In any case, the objective and subjective are ways of understanding how governments react to “crises and conflicts”; they’re not a means of understanding the crises and conflicts themselves.

Answer: D
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Explanation

3. It can most reasonably be inferred from the passage that the author would agree with which one of the following statements?

Explanation


­The passage is explicitly dealing only with “rational decision makers” (line 17), but (A) is describing an incomplete and chaotic process at odds with the text.

(B) is the winner, connecting the new findings about individuals’ risk-taking (cf. the “research subjects” and their assessment of gambling risks, lines 32+) with the risk-taking of governments (paragraph 3). The test taker is well advised to examine all five choices, but not with respect or reverence. Once you’ve found a winner, your expectation should be that the others are poor. Check to make sure that they are.

(C) certainly is: This is not a new “method”; there’s nothing about “prediction of conflict”; and the “synthesis of...economics and psychology” is both inaccurate and too grandiose (if anything, it’s a synthesis of the objective and subjective factors that enter into the gambles we take).

(D)’s apocalyptic tone has no support in the text, and since (as noted with regard to (A) above) the scope of the passage is solely rational thinking, (D) is very peculiar in stating that such decision making is “rare.”

Meanwhile, that which (E) describes—the assessment of costs and benefits—is an objective approach rather than a subjective one, and is in line with “previous assumptions,” not “contrary” to them.

Answer: B
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Explanation

­5. The passage most clearly suggests that the author would agree with which one of the following statements?

Explanation


(A) puzzlingly brings up an issue in which the author shows no interest, namely the relationship between researchers and their gullibility in terms of their test subjects.

(B) makes a hash of such concepts as “risk-taking” and “certain loss,” and, in any case, the author is out to celebrate these new findings, not to carp on their “inadequacy.” You had to figure that paragraph 3’s concrete example would show up in a question somewhere, and here it is in the last question’s correct choice (C).

How Britain and Argentina felt about the islands in question (i.e. that each had had the islands wrested by the other) is, again, a “feeling,” a subjective judgment, and it’s cited precisely to show how feelings can trump a nation’s objective good judgment; we can safely infer that the author would agree with (C).

You’d at least peek at (D) and (E) to confirm that they’re as bad as they need to be, and indeed they both prove to be 180’s. The new findings help us to understand why governments may choose to take illogical risks, thus rendering their logic more “comprehensible” to us outsiders rather than less so (D), and the reasoning that was recently investigated was clearly in line with observed governmental decision-making, not “divergent from” it (E).

Answer: C
­
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Explanation


­1. Suppose that a country seizes a piece of territory with great mineral wealth that is claimed by a neighboring country, with a concomitant risk of failure involving moderate but easily tolerable harm in the long run. Given the information in the passage, the author would most likely say that

Explanation


In any event, the hypothetical situation advanced here almost precisely mirrors the thinking described in lines 19-24. The “great mineral wealth” represents the “high expected measurable value,” and the “compensation for taking the risk” is explicitly cited as “moderate” and “easily tolerable.” Question is clearly choosing a risky venture along the lines of the “previous assumption,” as choice (A) describes.

There’s no information about how the country whose territory is being seized (B) would react, nor do the new findings shed light on it—after all, the actedupon country isn’t the one taking any risks.

(C) has it backward: To the seizing country, the risks are clearly outweighed by the expected objective value (that’s why it seized the territory in the first place).

“motivation” (D) is almost a sure sign of a wrong answer. Here, if the situation is taken on its face, the seizing government seems motivated only by calculation of risks and benefits.

There’s no evidence that the seized territory is perceived in the same way as the Falkland Islands were perceived by both Britain and Argentina (E)—for all we know, the seizing country’s first claim on the territory begins right now.

Answer: A
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