7. Organization Questions
まずは、Organization Questionsを実際に解いてみて、どのような問題傾向か確認していきましょう：
MP3: SoundCloud
Question
- Q1. How is the lecture organized?
- A. The topic is introduced and then described followed by several examples
B. The professor continues with a topic from the reading and answers questions
C. The two topics are compared and contrasted
D. The professor lists the characteristics of the main topic
Answer
- A
Transcript
| Professor: | Today we’re going to be discussing public goods. |
| So, basically, lots of individuals and businesses create new ideas and products everyday and most expect to get some money from their creations. But what happens when you make something that has such a tremendous benefit to society that you can’t expect to receive any money in return? | |
| This kind of good is a public good. | |
| Can anyone think of any examples of a public good? | |
| Student A: | Well, I’m not so sure but maybe some of the TV channels on basic cable. I mean, anyone with a TV and antenna can get some channels to watch. |
| Professor: | Yes, I didn’t think about that before, but you’re right, basic cable channels are a public good. Another example might be a country’s national defense or military. These exist purely to benefit the people. |
| Student B: | Professor, is there any way to kind of judge whether a product is a public or private good. I mean, like those TV channels, they might be free, but you still need to buy a TV. So, I guess I’m just not sure how you can tell if something is a public good. |
| Professor: | Yes, this idea can be a bit confusing. I guess it’s best to contrast it with a private good, say, a piece of pizza. A piece of pizza can be bought and sold pretty easily. And one of the reasons why is because it is so easy to separate. I suppose one of the most defining characteristics of public goods is that they are almost impossible to separate. TV airwaves and the national defense system are not things you can really break down into pieces. It’s the same with public WiFi. Many cities are now offering free WiFi to residents. WiFi only exists in the air. You can’t hold WiFi and separate it into pieces. |
| Student C: | Okay professor, I think I get it now. But in the book they mentioned the terms non-excludable and non-rivalrous when trying to explain public goods and I didn’t really get it. |
| Professor: | Great, I was just going to get to that. So, besides being hard to separate, economists usually classify something as a public good if it is both non-excludable and non-rivalrous. |
| Now, I know those terms are quite a mouthful, but they are fairly simple ideas. Let’s start with non-excludable. | |
| Non-excludable means that it is either expensive or nearly impossible to exclude someone from using the good. Let’s say an individual, who we will call Larry, buys a private good like a piece of pizza, then he can exclude others from eating that pizza. However, if national defense is being provided, then it includes everyone. Even if you strongly disagree with your country’s defense policies, the national defense still protects you. You cannot choose to be unprotected, and national defense cannot protect everyone else and exclude you. | |
| The second main characteristic of a public good is that it’s non-rivalrous, which means that when one person uses the public good, another can also use it. With a private good like pizza, if our subject Larry is eating the pizza then another person cannot can not eat it; that is, the two people are rivals in consumption. With a public good like national defense, Larry’s consumption of national defense does not reduce the amount for others, so they are non-rivalrous in this area. | |
| A number of government services are also examples of public goods. For instance, it would not be easy to provide fire and police service for some people in a given neighborhood, but not everyone. Protecting some necessarily means protecting others, too. | |
| Paying for public goods is always a challenging dilemma for both business leaders and politicians. The key insight in paying for public goods is to find a way of assuring that everyone will make a contribution. For example, if people come together through the political process and agree to pay taxes and make group decisions about the quantity of public goods, they can all feel like they are being treated equally because everyone contributes. |
Organization Questions の解き方
Organization Questionsは、対話やレクチャーの全体の流れを抽象化して解釈することが求められる問題です。
直接答えとなる情報はないので、情報のまとまりごとに「どのような役割があるのか？」を解釈しながら全体の流れを推測していきます。
設問は以下の形式で出題されます：
- How does the (professor) organize ~?
- Why does the (professor) mention ~?
聴き取った情報をまとめる要約力が重要になる問題形式で、トピックが変わるたびにそれまでの内容を簡単に頭の中でまとめる（もしくはメモする）ことに慣れておきましょう。
トピックが変わる時は、”Okay/So/Let’s move onto/Now” などのシグナル表現が用いられることが多いのです。
慣れないうちは音が止まるごとに、内容をまとめて簡単に書き起こしてみましょう。慣れてきたら、トピックごとに。それにも慣れてきたら、1分、2分と時間を伸ばしていきます。
最終的には、音声を聴いた後に内容をまとめて描き出せるようにしておけば、要約力が身につきOrganization Questionsを解くことが容易になるはずです。
- Organization Questionsは対話やレクチャーの全体の流れをザックリ解釈する問題
- トピックが切り替わるごとに「〜について話」というように、情報にタイトルをつけていく
- 慣れないうちは音が止まるたびに情報をまとめて書き起こす。慣れてきたら時間を伸ばす