What is the passage mainly about?

Past, unrecoverable spending should not drive our choices; good decisions look only forward. (The sunk cost fallacy is letting gone-and-unrecoverable spending pull us on; the fix is to 'look only forward.')

What is a sunk cost, according to the passage?

Money, time, or effort already spent that cannot be recovered (The text defines it as 'money, time, or effort already spent that cannot be recovered no matter what you do next.')

The author would advise someone stuck in a failing project to:

Decide based on its future value, ignoring what was already invested. (The diagnostic question ignores 'what I have already spent' and asks whether you would choose it again from here.)

In 'A rational choice looks only forward,' the word "rational" most nearly means:

based on clear reasoning (It is contrasted with the emotional 'voice' urging you to go, so 'rational' means reason-based.)

The Sunk Cost Trap: Level 4 Reading Comprehension Questions

You have paid for a concert ticket, and on the evening of the show you feel exhausted and unwell. Going would be miserable. Yet a voice insists you must go, because you already paid. That voice is the sunk cost fallacy, and it leads us wrong more often than we notice.

A sunk cost is money, time, or effort already spent that cannot be recovered no matter what you do next. The ticket price is gone whether you attend or stay home. A rational choice looks only forward: given where I am now, what is the best use of my evening? The past payment is irrelevant to that question, because nothing you choose tonight can bring it back.

The fallacy is powerful because quitting feels like waste, and we are built to hate waste. So we sit through bad films, finish tasteless meals, and stay in failing projects, telling ourselves that stopping would throw away what we invested. But the investment is already gone. Continuing does not honor it; it only adds fresh cost to a loss we cannot undo.

The cure is a habit of asking a single question: knowing what I know now, and ignoring what I have already spent, would I choose this again from here? If the answer is no, the money and hours already gone are not a reason to continue. They are exactly the thing you must learn to let go of.

Comprehension questions