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Explanation

6. According to the passage, many lay people believe which one of the following about risk communication?

Explanation

There are a few places where we find out what lay people think, but there’s only one place where we find out what some lay people think about risk communication, and that’s Para 1. Again, the answer to this Explicit Text question is virtually given on the page; all we have to do is a little translating. The relevant lines are 12-14: “...many lay people see ‘risk communication’ as a euphemism for brainwashing done by experts.” (B) says the same thing, only substituting “manipulate the public” for “brainwashing.”

(A) Some experts believe that lay people focus too heavily on exotic, not mundane hazards. Lay people themselves don’t express any view on this distinction in regard to their beliefs about risk communication.

(C) In this passage, lay people don’t express any beliefs about the issue of accuracy in regard to risk communication. The only blame they seem to place on the practice is in relation to those who take the overly persuasive stance.

(D) and (E) remind us more of the authors’ ideas than any notions we can attribute to lay people. The authors believe that risk communication should function to help people make informed decisions (D), but there is no indication that lay people feel that it does in fact accomplish this. The same goes for (E): The authors certainly seem to believe that the effectiveness of risk communication is impacted by the knowledge level of the public, but we have no way of knowing that the public itself feels this way.

Answer: B
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Explanation

4. Which one of the following is most clearly an example of the kind of risk perception discussed in the “studies” mentioned in line 8?

Difficulty Level: 600

Explanation

The studies mentioned in line 8 are described fully in lines 8-11. While people pay little attention to “mundane,” that is, everyday hazards that are in fact dangerous, they worry too much about “exotic” dangers that in reality are not as dangerous as the everyday hazards. We need to look through the choices for the example that seems to match this type of risk perception. It’s doubtful that we can pre-phrase the exact examples that the correct choice will contain, but we can at least pre-phrase the kind of examples we’re looking for: We want people to be all uptight about something that’s interesting (exotic) yet fairly safe, and carefree about something routine yet dangerous. In general, then, we’re looking for a somewhat irrational perception of risks.

(A) Nothing crazy about this: Skydiving is clearly exotic and dangerous, and it’s perfectly reasonable to double- and triple-check the mechanisms.

(B) Smoking is surely dangerous, but it’s hard to tell whether smoking can be characterized as exotic or mundane (maybe it depends on what movies we watch). In any case, like the skydiver in (A), this person is making a rational decision based on a reasonable perception of risk, so this doesn’t accord well with the studies cited.

(C) Cautious, maybe. But not crazy.

(D) Here’s the loon we’re looking for: Swerving in and out of traffic at high speeds is a dangerous way to engage in an otherwise mundane activity, yet despite the real danger involved the driver seems fairly unconcerned. Maybe that’s because his psychic energy is spent on worrying about meteors hitting his house, an event that’s, well, very unlikely. This is certainly a strange, perhaps inverted perception of risk, and it matches the kind of mentality described in the study.

(E) Ah, the old NIMBY defense—“Not In My BackYard.” This attitude may not be very socially appropriate, but there’s nothing unusual about this perception of risk; it’s another reasonable concern about a real danger.

Answer: D
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