Self-study
Unlike many machines that are perfectly useful in isolation from others, fax machines must work with other fax machines. █████ ██ ███ ███ █████████ ███ █████████████ ██ ████████████ ████████ █████ ████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██████████████ ████████ ███████ ███ ████████████████ █████ ███ ██████████ ██████████████ ███ ██████████ █████ ███ █████████████ ██████ ██ █████ █ ██████ ██████ ███ █████ █████████
Summary
Fax machines are only useful in combination with other fax machines. Competition between fax machine manufacturers led to many different, incompatible formats being used for different fax machines, which made fax machines overall less useful and a less viable product. This problem lasted until manufacturers adopted a common format for all fax machines.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
In certain industries, excessive competition can be detrimental to the competitors.
More market competition does not always lead to more useful products for consumers.
10.
The information above provides the ████ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ █████████████
a
Whenever machines are █████████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ███████████ █████ █████████████ ██ ████████ ██ ███ █████████
This answer is unsupported. The stimulus is limited to fax machines as an example. We don’t know anything about machines in any other industry.
b
In some industries ██ ██ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ███████████ ██ █████████ ██ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ████████
This answer is strongly supported. If fax machines must work with other fax machines, then it is in the interest of different fax machine manufacturers to cooperate to some extent.
c
The more competitors █████ ███ ██ █ █████████ █████████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ████ ██ █████████ ██ ███████████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ █████ ████████
This answer is unsupported. The stimulus is limited to the fax industry, and we don't even know if that's a "high-tech" industry. The stimulus also never indicates that manufacturers needed to cooperate on the basic design of fax machines.
d
Some cooperation among █████████████ ██ ███ ████ ████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ████ ██ ████ ████████████
This answer is unsupported. Although it may seem similar to (B), (D) says that cooperation within an industry is beneficial; in other words, cooperation within an industry is always beneficial. This is too strong to be supported. We only know that in one particular industry (fax), cooperation was in companies' interest. This doesn't necessarily apply to other industries.
e
Cooperation is beneficial ████ ██ ██████████ █████ ████████ ██████ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ █████
This answer is unsupported. We know that cooperation can be useful when products depend on each other, but the stimulus never indicates it's only useful in those circumstances.