Reading Comprehension

PT141 · S1 · P4 · Q27 Rectification of Past Property Injustice

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Passage A

Topic

Justice in property ownership and how it relates to Native American land claims in the U.S.

Framework

Answer / Explain (Passage A gives us a theory for evaluating property justice, and Passage B applies this framework to a real-world historical issue.)

Main Point

Passage A: A just system of property ownership depends on fair acquisition and transfer, and when past injustices occur, those injustices should be rectified by bringing current ownership into line with what would have happened if justice had always been followed. (Most valuable sentence: End of Passage A.) Passage B: The U.S. has a law (the Indian Nonintercourse Act) meant to protect Native American land, and a strong case can be made that, since Native Americans were wrongfully dispossessed, justice requires restoring land to them whenever possible.

P1 (Passage A): Principles of Justice in Property

This paragraph introduces two rules for justice regarding property: one about how you can initially own something, and one about how you can justly transfer it to someone else.

P2 (Passage A): Ideal Entitlement to Property

If everything was fair, ownership would only ever come from original acquisition or fair transfers—no other way would be legitimate.

P3 (Passage A): The Problem of Past Injustice

But real life isn’t so clean: sometimes property is stolen or taken unjustly. Here the author says we need a principle for rectifying this: by looking at history and figuring out what ownership would look like if no injustice had occurred, we should try to correct things now.

27.

Which one of the following most accurately describes the difference in approach taken by passage A as compared to passage B?

Correct
Passage A espouses a general
Why this is right
Did passage A espouse a general view without details? Sure. Everything in there sounded theoretical. It didn't name any places or dates. And even the rectification part was saying "A principle of rectification would say X", like hypothetically. Did passage B sketch an argument it doesn't necessarily endorse? Jeez. Let me check? Yes, I guess the final paragraph is sketching out an argument from its beginning through the sentence that begins with Ideally. The (one might almost say obvious) way of reasoning about Native American claims to land is that .... (ideally), the land should be restored to its rightful owners (the Native Americans). But then the author backpedals and softens a bit: - This may be impractical - Compromises might have to be made - let's give the land back ... where feasible, of course!
Skill tested: Method · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
32% picked this
Passage A argues for the
No Opinion in A
We can stop with the first ingredient here, since Passage A was neutral, dry, scholarly, and theoretical. It didn't argue in favor of any view.
11% picked this
Passage A invokes commonly held
Double Mismatch
Passage A really isn't recommending anything. Or is it? It's really impossible to say for sure. The author poses a rhetorical question ("What, if anything, ought to be done?") and then poses a hypothetical answer. Passage B doesn't rely on the views of any authorities. The closest thing to authorities in Passage B would be the U.S. government or Native American tribes, but those are in the first paragraph, and Passage B doesn't really get into its "return the land" spiel until the second paragraph, at which point it just relies on common sense fairness about property.
36% picked this
Passage A briefly states a
Double Mismatch
It's very unclear that Passage A is making an argument for anything. It seems to just clarify Principles of Property and then get into a little hypothetical about Principles of Rectification. We can definitely feel good about eliminating this answer based on the fact that Passage B does seem to have opinion towards the end, so if we're saying one passage is neutral and one is opinionated it should be A, B ... not B, A as this answer implies.
17% picked this
Passage A provides an argument
Weak Matches
It's very unclear that Passage A provides an argument in support of anything. The final sentence sounds like a recommendation, but it also sounds like the author is just explaining an implication of what a Principle of Rectification would say, were we to want to follow one. Passage B doesn't set out to undermine a view. It sketches out some reasoning that agrees with in spirit but thinks in practice would involve a lot of necessary compromises. But that's more like "qualified support" than "I'm here to undermine this view".
5% picked this

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