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 ██ ███ ████████ ████████ ███████ █████████ ████ ███████ █ ████ █████
This could be true. Notice that since this answer choice talks about "commanding a branch of the military" and directly "running" a bank, it seems to be talking about the people appointed by the government: the top military officials and senior bank management.
The columnist doesn't directly tell us how much knowledge these people will need, but since we know that defending the country is "at least" as great a responsibility as managing a bank, it seems possible that commanding a branch of the military is actually a greater responsibility, requiring greater knowledge, than running a bank. In any case, the stimulus gives us no reason to reject that idea.
b
Politicians do an ████████ ███ ██ ██████████ ███ ███ ████████ █████████ █████████ ████ █████████ ███ ████████
Not only could this statement be true, it in fact seems assumed by the argument. The columnist uses the analogy with the military as support for rejecting certain people's argument against the government taking over banks. If the columnist didn't think the government was doing an adequate job appointing military officials, using that situation as an analogy for the government appointing senior bank management would be very strange, and wouldn't give the columnist much grounds to reject the other people's argument.
c
Politicians are not ███████ ██ ████████ █ ██████ ██████████ ███████████
This could be true. The columnist never says or implies that politicians could manage a bank's day-to-day operations. In fact, he makes a point of saying that they would not have to do that. So it's possible the columnist believes politicians would be incapable of running a bank's day-to-day operations — the point of his argument is that they would, however, be capable of appointing a bank's senior management.
d
Banks that are █████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ████ ████████
This has to be false. This answer choice is consistent with the other people's argument, which we know the columnist is rejecting. If the columnist believed government-owned banks could never be well managed, his argument wouldn't make sense.
e
The government should ███ ████ ████ ██████████████ █████ ████ ███ ███████████ ██████
This could be true. The argument in the stimulus is entirely focused on government takeover of failing banks. We don't know what the columnist believes about the government taking over banks that are not failing.