Self-study
Columnist: Some people argue that the government should not take over failing private-sector banks because the government does not know how to manage financial institutions. ████████ ██████ ████ ████████ █ ██████ ██████████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████ ██████ ███████████ ████ ███████████ ████ █████ ████ ████████ ██████████████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███ ████████ █████████ █████████ ████ █████████ ███ ████████████ █████ ██ █████ █ ██████████████ ██ ████████ █ █████
Argument Summary
The columnist starts by introducing some people's argument that the government should not take over failing private-sector banks, because the government does not know how to manage financial institutions. The critic responds that the government would not be directly managing a bank's day-to-day operations, only selecting senior management for the bank. The critic mentions that the government already does this for the military, selecting officials to defend the country, which the critic points out is at least as much of a responsibility as managing a bank.
Notable Inferences
Notice that the columnist is rejecting the other people's argument. In other words, as we can see from the "however" in the stimulus, the columnist's implied conclusion is that these people are wrong. It's not true that the government shouldn't take over failing banks just because the government doesn't specialize in managing financial institutions. Just as the government appoints top military officials, so too can the government appoint senior management for a bank.
It's important to see that in order for this analogy to support the columnist's conclusion, the columnist must think the government is doing at least a decent job managing the military. If the columnist thought the government was doing a terrible job managing the military, the analogy wouldn't work, and the argument wouldn't make sense.
10.
The columnist's statements, if true, ███████ ██████ ███ █████████ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████████
a
Commanding a branch ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ███████ █████████ ████ ███████ █ ████ █████
b
Politicians do an ████████ ███ ██ ██████████ ███ ███ ████████ █████████ █████████ ████ █████████ ███ ████████
c
Politicians are not ███████ ██ ████████ █ ██████ ██████████ ███████████
d
Banks that are █████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ████ ████████
e
The government should ███ ████ ████ ██████████████ █████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██████