The Citizen Must Indeed Be Happy And Good, And The Legislator Will GMAT Reading Comprehension

Reading Passage Question

The citizen must indeed be happy and good, and the legislator will seek to make him so; but very rich and very good at the same time he cannot be, not, at least, in the sense in which the many speak of riches. For they mean by “the rich” the few who have the most valuable possessions, although the owner of them may quite well be a rogue. And if this is true, I can never assent to the doctrine that the rich man will be happy—he must be good as well as rich. And good in a high degree, and rich in a high degree and at the same time, he cannot be. Some one will ask, why not? And we shall answer—Because acquisitions which come from sources which are just and unjust indifferently are more than double those which come from just sources only; and the sums which are expended neither honorably nor disgracefully are only half as great as those which are expended honorably and on honorable purposes. Thus, if the one acquires double and spends half, the other who is in the opposite case and is a good man cannot possibly be wealthier than he. The first—I am speaking of the saver and not of the spender—is not always bad; he may indeed in some cases be utterly bad, but, as I was saying, a good man he never is. For he who receives money unjustly as well as justly, and spends neither justly or unjustly, will be a rich man if he is also thrifty. On the other hand, the utterly bad is in general profligate, and therefore very poor; while he who spends on noble objects, and acquires wealth by just means only, can hardly be remarkable for riches, any more than he can be very poor. Our statement, then, is true, that the very rich are not good, and, if they are not good, they are not happy. But the intention of our laws was that the citizens should be as happy as may be and as friendly as possible to one another. Therefore, as we have said not once but many times, the care of riches should have the last place in our thoughts.

“The citizen must indeed be happy and good, and the legislator will”- is a GMAT reading comprehension exercise. Candidates need to be highly proficient in GMAT reading comprehension. There are three comprehension questions in this GMAT reading comprehension section. The purpose of the GMAT Reading Comprehension questions is to evaluate candidates' comprehension, analysis, and application skills. Candidates who are actively preparing can benefit from GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solutions and Explanation

1. The premise behind the argument in this passage is that

1. to be happy, a man must be good.
2. the drive to achieve wealth is greater than the drive to achieve goodness.
3. a man who spends his money honorably is rarer than a man who spends his money disgracefully.
4. it is better to be good than to be either rich or happy.
5. if a man is a saver rather than a spender, he will be both good and wealthy.

2. The passage makes all of the following points EXCEPT

1. A man will be richer if he doesn’t insist on acquiring money only in honorable ways.
2. Generally, a man who behaves wickedly will not be thrifty with his money.
3. If a man acquires more than he spends, he is not necessarily bad, but neither is he good.
4. Generally, poverty is a sign of a man’s goodness.
5. Donating money to worthy causes doesn’t make a man good.

3. Which of the following best describes the method the author uses to make his point in this passage?

1. providing concrete examples that lead to a generalization
2. presenting a series of statements leading to a logical conclusion
3. showing the weakness of opposing views
4. listing exceptions to a generally accepted premise
5. making a general statement and illustrating it with a particular case

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