Q3

[joann.wang.2]

I am slightly frustrated by this question because each answer seems to be slightly off to be the right answer. The least offensive being the correct answer, B, but I still don't see it supported by the passage...

I easily excluded:
A -- passage doesn't specify which theory was dominant and no implication that anything was abandoned
D -- there doesn't seem to have been a debate on pros and cons
E -- no controversial theory

Between C and D, I had issues with:

C: the word "novel" -- why is Rawls theory a novel way? Because it offers an alternative to utilitarianism? And what is the problem? Is it the question in paragraph two about knowing what justice requires? That didn't seem evident to me and was not something I picked up under the time constraint of the section...

D: I ultimately picked this one. I had issues with "historical development" as it really didn't seem like it but I thought perhaps it was justified because of the organization of the "pre-Rawls's theory" in the first paragraph and then Rawls's theory. Was this too far of a stretch to make?

Any advice on how to approach this problem would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Primary Purpose

Answer expected in lines/paragraph:
Line 51-55 ("Unfortunately") + the first sentence or two of the first four paragraphs.

Any prephrase?
The author seeks to help us understand JR's theory, by explaining that it was reacting against utiliarianism and by explaining what Rawls proposes as an alternative, and ultimately (in the last sentence) to evaluate a potential shortcoming of Rawls's theory. We might predict something like "To describe and evaluate Rawls's theory".

Correct answer:
B

Answer choice analysis:

(A) Extreme: "abandoned". This passage was mostly about Rawls, not about the 'death' of utiliarianism.

(B) Keep it on a first pass. Both lines 17-19 and 25-26 both pose a question (problem) and say that Rawls has a clever/novel answer.

(C) Extreme: "celebrated"? Also, there's no historical development, other than the initial backstory of reacting against utiliarianism.

(D) Extreme: "complex"? Was it ever described that way? Just because the passage was a tough read doesn't mean Rawls's theory is complex. The author does seem to have an overall positive view of Rawls, with ONE misgiving at the end, but to say the passage was debating pros and cons doesn't quite feel accurate.

(E) Extreme: "argue for the truth of"? The author seems implicitly impressed/intrigued by Rawls's theory, but she's certainly not so obviously on board that we could say she's arguing that it's true.

Takeaway/Pattern: Ultimately, (B) was our best choice. It definitely feels incomplete, and it definitely feels like they went out of their way to choose abstract wording that no student would have naturally prephrased, but there's nothing INACCURATE about it. The other four all had at least some word/idea with no support. (B) is definitely supportable, even if it feels like it mainly rewards paragraphs 2/3/4 while not leaving a ton for 1 or 5.

#officialexplanation

[RyanC307]

I would say D is incorrect because it takes too narrow a scope. The only sort of evaluation of Rawl's theory occurs when the author says: it gives us an answer to "what justice requires", guarantees a minimum of primary goods, and is inherently re-distributive. But this really only captures the 2nd and 5th paragraphs, and ignores utilitarianism.

While B capture the whole passage. The dominant approach to justice was utilitarianism, but both Rawls and the author want to reject. This creates a problem, without utilitarianism we don't know what justice requires. And Rawls' offers an "ingenious" and "clever" answer, which is then explored in detail by the author for the rest of the paragraph.