Practice Passage Test - 6 | Practice Passages for MCAT PDF Download

Consider a situation where you are offered $100 to share with an anonymous person. Both players are aware of the strict rules. You and the other person are in separate rooms with no means of communication. A coin toss determines who will propose how to divide the money. As the proposer, you can make a single offer on how to split the sum, and the other person, known as the responder, can either accept or reject the offer. If the responder accepts, the deal proceeds, but if they reject, neither of you receives anything. The game ends in both cases and will not be repeated. So, what would you do in this scenario? Many individuals instinctively believe that offering 50 percent is fair and likely to be accepted. However, some more daring individuals think they can get away with offering less than half of the sum. Surprisingly, the majority of offers fall between 40 and 50 percent, with only a small percentage offering less than 20 percent. The passage explores why anyone would reject an offer that seems "too small" when they have the option to either take what is offered or receive nothing. Game theory analysis suggests that a selfish proposer, assuming the responder is also selfish, would make the smallest possible offer to keep the rest. However, this is not how most people actually play the game. The passage discusses the Ultimatum Game, its cross-cultural variations, and challenges the notion of individuals as purely rational and selfish beings.