PrepTest 114, Section 4, Question 4
The government-owned gas company has begun selling stoves(63 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(10 more words not shown)
- AGovernment-owned companies have(12 more words not shown)
- BA government should(7 more words not shown)
- CPrivate businesses have(7 more words not shown)
- DThere is nothing(17 more words not shown)
- EThere is nothing(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Would the same permission apply to a government-owned company?
I can understand why the merchants dislike a new competitor. I might also ask whether the government company has some unfair advantage or is forcing people to buy its appliances. But the passage hasn't established any of that. Selling another stove could hurt a merchant's business without automatically making the sale wrong.
The author even concedes that the merchants may be hurt. So the conclusion isn't a promise that competition will leave them unaffected. It is that the government company is within its rights. The offered reason concerns what a private company may do, and that's where we need a connection: this company isn't privately owned.
What we’re looking for
We're asked for a principle that helps justify the reasoning. I'd give government-owned companies permission to do what private businesses are allowed to do. Then the accepted permission to sell appliances would carry over to the company we're actually discussing.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The private gas company would be permitted to sell the appliances. A says that government-owned companies have the right to do whatever private businesses have the right to do. Apply that rule to this sale, and the government company's right follows.
The rule connects the two types of company at the precise point the argument needs. We don't have to claim that their operations are identical in every respect or that the merchants won't lose business. We need the private company's permission to establish the government company's permission.
- B
Taking a complaint seriously doesn't mean the conduct being complained about is wrong. The government could listen carefully and still conclude that the company has the right to sell appliances. B concerns how to respond to merchants, not whether their competitor may make these sales.
- C
This restricts private businesses' competition with government monopolies. But the disputed action is the government company's entry into appliance sales. We aren't trying to establish that the existing merchants must stop selling their products, and no government monopoly has been identified. C answers a different question about a different actor.
- D
The permission here applies when private-company owners do not complain. They are complaining in the situation before us, so that condition isn't met. D therefore doesn't establish permission for this sale. It doesn't automatically prove the sale wrong either; it simply offers a rule for circumstances we don't have.
- E
This stays on the private-business side of the gap. We can accept that private companies may compete and still ask whether the government-owned company has the same permission. E doesn't connect the two, so it leaves the argument's crucial step unsupported.
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