Self-paced
If a country’s manufacturing capacity is fully utilized, there can be no industrial growth without new capital investment. ███ █████████ ██ ████████ █████ ████████ ███ ███████ ███████████
Objective: Infer a Conclusion
The stimulus doesn't offer us a full argument, only a set of factual claims which we can treat as premises. These premises will support a conclusion found in the answer choices.
We get two conditional premises: that for countries with fully-utilized manufacturing capacity, new capital investment is necessary for industrial growth; and that a reduction in interest rates is sufficient for new capital investment. We can also simplify that first premise by kicking up the idea of fully-utilized manufacturing capacity into the domain.
Domain: countries with fully-utilized manufacturing capacity
P1: industrial growth → new capital investment
P2: interest rate reduction → new capital investment
Effectively, the stimulus offers two sufficient conditions for new capital investment. It's hard to immediately see how we could link up these conditions to make an inference, so we can go straight to the answer choices using process of elimination. We're looking for a conclusion supported by these premises.
1.
Which one of the following ███ ██ ████████ █████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██████
a
Interest rates might ██ ███████████ █████ ██ ███████ ███████ █████ █████ ███ ██████████ ██████████ ██ ███ ████████
(A) directly contradicts the stimulus, which tells us that a reduction in interest rates is sufficient to guarantee new capital investment.
b
A reduction in ████████ █████ █████ █████ █ ████████████ ███ ██████████ ██████ ██ ██ ████
The stimulus tells us that for certain countries, new capital investment is a precondition (i.e. necessary) for industrial growth. And reducing interest rates is sufficient to produce new capital investment, meeting this precondition. So we can logically infer (B) based on the stimulus.
c
If a country’s █████████████ ████████ ██ ██████████████ ████████ █████ ██████ ██ ████ █████████
The stimulus doesn't make any "should" claims, so it doesn't support a conclusion about what we "should" do.
d
New capital investment ████ █████ █████ █████ ████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██████ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████
The stimulus doesn't offer any direct connection between interest rates and industrial growth. It certainly doesn't tell us that rising interest rates would prevent industrial growth.
e
Manufacturing capacity newly ███████ ██ ███████ ██████████ █████ ██ ██ █████ ████████ ██ ██ ██ ██ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████
The stimulus only says that new capital investment is necessary for industrial growth. We don't know the exact mechanisms involved, so (E) is consistent with the stimulus. However, it's also consistent with the stimulus for (E) to be false, so it's not the conclusion we're looking for.