Self-study
Historian: Support Scholars writing histories of an era's business practices must, of course, analyze the practices and strategies employed by firms of that era. ███ ██████████ ████████ █████ ██████████ █████ ████ ██████████ ████ ████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ████ ████████ █████████ ████████████ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ███████████
Summarize Argument
The historian concludes that business histories overestimate the successes of past business. He supports this by saying that, while business historians analyze the business practices and strategies employed by past firms, they probably study successful firms more frequently than they do unsuccessful firms.
Notable Assumptions
The historian assumes that studying successful firms more frequently results in an overestimation of past business success in general, without considering that historians may still account for both successes and failures.
15.
Which one of the following ██████ ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ███████████ █████████
a
The specific factors ████ █████ ██████████ ██ ██ ██████ ███ █████ ███ █████████ ████ ██████████ ███████ ██ ████████ █████████
Even if historians can't know the exact reasons for a business's failure, it doesn't effect whether they tend to study successful businesses more or overestimate past business success without considering both successes and failures.
b
Those who study ████ ████████████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██████████ ██████████ ████████ ████ ████ ███████ ███████████ ████████ ████████████
We don’t know if business historians are studying "first-person accounts of business strategies." Even if they are, (B) doesn’t explain whether using present-day cultural assumptions affects how accurately historians assess past business successes.
c
The many public █████ █████████ ████ █████ ████ ███ ██ ████ ███████ █ ██████ ████ ██ ████ █████████ ████ ████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ███ ████████ ██████████
Irrelevant— we don’t know whether the historians are studying public documents, internal documents, or both. We also don’t know how, if at all, any of these documents might affect historians’ ability to accurately assess past business successes.
d
The records of ██████████ ████ ████ ████ ████████ ███ █████████ ████ ██████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ███████████
This strengthens the argument because if historians can’t access records from bankrupt businesses, they can’t accurately account for business failures or judge how often they overestimate past business successes. As a result, they are likely to overestimate those successes.
e
Scholars who study ██████████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ █████████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ███████████████
Irrelevant— the fact that the historians are trained in business administration tells us nothing about whether they’re more or less likely to overestimate past business successes.