Recognize similar situations | Worked example

- [Instructor] All right. The comparison described in the first two sentences is most similar to which of the following? Okay, in this case, reading the stem first doesn't help me, let's dive right into the passage. "People who are afraid to fly say that they prefer to drive, "being behind the wheel gives them a sense of control "over their own safety. "However, flying is still the fastest "and safest form of travel. "It is the preferred method of travel "for most business people and it is arguably "the best way to get from place to place, "since air travelers don't have to contend "with aggravating road traffic jams "or unexpected stops on trains." Did a plane write this? Okay, so what's being setup in the first two sentences here is that people who are afraid of flying prefer to drive, even though flying is safer than driving. So we're gonna look for a similar situation or an analogous situation in the choices and see what is this kind of ironic pairing, right? Like, you look at the safe thing, and you say, no thank you, you look at the unsafe thing, and you're like, yeah. That's the situation that we're looking for, right? You don't wanna fly, cause flying seems dangerous, even though the actual unsafe thing is driving. But that you're super jazzed about. Not you, but someone. So, okay, so "Someone who is afraid of mice "has no fear of handling a venomous snake." Well, assuming these mice have no diseases or anything, mice, safe, but they don't like the safe thing. They like the unsafe thing, the venomous snake. This seems promising. "Someone who is afraid of heights," which can be an unsafe thing, "is also afraid of flying in a plane," which is a safe thing. But also makes plenty of sense, there's no irony or contradiction in being afraid of heights and also of flying in a plane. Planes fly 30,000 feet, that can be scary to someone who's afraid of heights. I don't think this is our answer, cause we're kind of looking for an ironic juxtaposition, right? You're afraid of the safe thing but you're not afraid of the unsafe thing. And so this is someone who's afraid of both things. Choice C, "Someone who is afraid of the ocean "prefers not to go sailing." This is very similar to B, I don't think of sailing as a leisure activity as being a particularly unsafe thing, but these are also related fears. And that's not the same as preferring to drive because you hate to fly. This is like hating to drive cause you're afraid of the highway, it's very interrelated. So I'm gonna cross that off. D, "Someone who is afraid of public speaking," a safe thing, a thing that people are scared of, but not a life-threatening thing, "has no fear of speaking in small groups." That's another safe thing. Public speaking is one of the most common fears that people have, it makes sense. This is a much more intense version of this. So it makes sense that someone would be fine with speaking in small groups and terrified of public speaking. Finally, "Someone who is afraid of needles "has no fear of taking medicine orally." But again, as with D, like getting a shot is like the public speaking of medicine, it's way scarier than taking a pill, swallowing medicine instead. So this here is the scary thing, and this is the not-scary thing. And needles, we know, are a thing that a lot of people are frightened of. The comparison would work if it was, someone who is afraid of taking medicine orally isn't afraid of needles. But that's not what it is. They're afraid of the more intense thing, and not afraid of the less intense thing. So I'm gonna cross that off. And that means that "Someone who is afraid of mice "but has no fear of venomous snakes" is our answer. So we came up with a model to test against, right? What I did was I took the comparison in the passage and kind of turned it into an abstract idea. The comparison is, someone who is afraid of the safe thing but is into the unsafe thing. And then we apply that test to the choices, and that's how I found the answer.