Highlight the author’s conclusions:

Passage A:
Markets, such as stock exchanges, distill the collective wisdom of millions of people into a single number, and they do so with amazing efficiency.

Passage B:
Markets are not infallible.

Map the wording of the answers to the reference in the prompt, or to the author’s conclusions:

8. Both passages are primarily concerned with answering which one of the following questions?

Map the answers to the author’s conclusions.

(A) …more reliable than individual judgment?

Neither passage makes this comparison directly. Both conclusions are about “markets”, which don’t get mentioned here.

(B) …the movement of stock markets?

Careful, passage B never mentions “stock markets”, so no way that’s what it’s “primarily” concerned with.

(C) Can markets be used to elicit reliable information?

Both conclusions address this question. Let’s hang on to this one.

(D) …more likely to be true when people will stake money on them?

This idea does come up in both passages, but it’s not what either passage is “primarily concerned with”. Neither author’s argument is based on making this comparison, and it isn’t part of either author’s conclusion.

(E) …as efficient as actual stock markets?

Neither passage makes a comparison between the efficiency of different markets.

(C) is the correct answer.

9. The purpose of passage A and the purpose of passage B, respectively, are to

Map the answers to the author’s conclusions.

(A) persuade and inform

Both passages make an argument, so “inform” really doesn’t fit. That would only work if passage B was just facts.

(B) challenge and defend

This is pretty far off about both. We want to see disagreement to make “challenge” work, but that’s not what passage A did. And passage B attacked “markets”, it didn’t really “defend” anything.

(C) present and interpret

Passage A’s author is making their own argument, so “present” doesn’t do the trick.

(D) entertain and educate

Nobody picked this, right? If you did, we have very different understandings of what “entertain” means.

(E) advocate and deflate

Love the first part, since it maps well to any passage that makes an argument in favor of something. We might pick a different word than “deflate” if we had the choice, but it aligns well enough with an author who spent most of the passage pushing back.

(E) is the correct answer.

10. The authors of the two passages would be most likely to agree on…

Map the answers to the author’s conclusions.

(A) They are a much better predictor…

Passage B’s conclusion definitely casts doubt on this. We couldn’t say that author would agree.

(B) …completely random and unpredictable…

This is too strong even for passage B’s author, but A’s author would definitely disagree.

(C) They are easily manipulated…

Passage A’s author wouldn’t agree with something so negative.

(D) They are affected by new information…

This is such a weak statement, who would disagree? And each author’s description of markets shows that they do indeed agree.

(E) They are no better at predicting elections that most polls are.

Passage A contradicts this directly, saying markets did “better than 75 percent of the polls did.”

(D) is the correct answer.

11. The relationship between which one of the following…

Map the answers to the author’s conclusions.

(A) “The Future of Computing”

Passage A isn’t about “the future” of anything.

(B) “Computer Models for Predicting Elections”

That’s too specific. Passage A got into “predicting elections” in one paragraph, but the title would want to capture the overall conclusion about “amazing efficiency.”

(C) “The Pace of Computer Innovation”

This is too neutral. We need a title that captures Passage’s A argument about the positives of something.

(D) “Computer Simulations of Stock Prices”

This is too neutral and too specific. Passage A’s conclusion is that there are good things about “markets”, which is a broader topic than what’s going on in this answer.

(E) “Computers as Thinking Machines” and “Computers Don’t Think…

This is the only answer that even comes close to capturing the disagreement between the passages.

(E) is the correct answer.

12. Passage B, but not passage A, advances its argument in part by referring to…

Map the answers to the reference in the prompt. Since the prompt doesn’t tell us where to look, the search box is likely to be pretty helpful checking the answers.

(A) market crashes

Are not mentioned in passage B.

(B) racetracks

Are mentioned in passage B but not in A. Boom. Moving on.

(C) insiders

Are not mentioned in passage B.

(D) polls

Are mentioned in both passages.

(E) contracts

Are not mentioned in passage B.

(B) is the correct answer.

13. Suppose that, in an attempt to manipulate…

Map the answers to the reference in the prompt. The “well-informed traders” in the prompt is a reference to “what informed people know” in the third paragraph of passage A.

(A) …cannot have a sustained increase in value

This answer was good until this part, which doesn’t map to the reference. It didn’t say anything about “a sustained increase”, let alone saying it’s impossible.

(B) …quickly and accurately disseminated…

This maps perfectly to the reference in the passage, which says “the market as a whole learns–lightning fast and very accurately”.

(C) neither passage…

(D) passage B…

(E) passage B…

These answers all miss the reference in the prompt, which aligns to passage A.

(B) is the correct answer.

14. The relation between the conception in passage A and the conception in passage B…

Map the answers to the author’s conclusions or to references in the prompt. The conclusions tell us the passage A thinks the “knowledge” is part of markets’ “amazing efficiency”, but passage B thinks they “do not actually predict the future”.

(A) a typewriter and a word processor

This doesn’t map to the authors’ disagreement about “how markets handle the knowledge”. We’re not looking for one to be a more advanced or efficient version of the other.

(B) a thermostat and a thermometer

At least a thermostat changes the temperature and a thermometer doesn’t, which is kinda like “knowledge” making markets more efficient in A but not in B. We gotta keep this one until something better shows up.

(C) a bicycle and a motorcycle

This is the same as (A), one is just a faster more powerful version of the other, but we don’t get any of the disagreement with this.

(D) a news broadcast and a magazine

If this is starting to hurt your head, I’m right there with you. This will all be over in a minute haha. These are just two different ways of getting info, but the disagreement between the authors doesn’t fit the “relation” between these two.

(E) a digital camera and a camera that uses film

Like (D), these are two different ways of doing the same thing. But there’s no disagreement between them like between the two authors.

(B) is the correct answer.