PrepTest 120, Section 4, Question 20
Investment banker: Democracies require free-market capitalist economies, because(47 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- ANo current government(17 more words not shown)
- BThe more democratic(10 more words not shown)
- CThe need for(18 more words not shown)
- DA free-market economy(6 more words not shown)
- EThe nations whose(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Are these governments actually making the transition the banker describes?
The banker's story concerns a particular situation: moving from totalitarian rule toward democracy. We're told that, during that transition, some measures restricting capitalist development are required. Even if we have questions about that political account, we can grant it for purposes of the argument.
But the conclusion defends measures being taken by certain current governments. We haven't been told that those governments belong to the situation just described. If they aren't emerging from totalitarian rule, the banker's evidence may have nothing to do with what they're doing.
What we’re looking for
For the necessary assumption, I'd look for a connection between these governments and that transition. The argument doesn't defend every restriction on capitalism everywhere. Its defense depends on the historical circumstances applying to the countries under criticism.
Working the answers
- A
The argument doesn't need every current government to fall short of complete democracy. Some other country could be fully democratic while the governments being criticized were still in transition. A makes a claim about all current governments that this particular defense doesn't require.
- B
This turns a requirement for democracy into a scale: more democracy always requires less regulation. The banker hasn't established that step-by-step relationship. In fact, the argument is specifically about restrictions during a transition, so a simple rule about steadily declining regulation isn't the needed assumption.
- C
The argument doesn't compare how probable partially and fully democratic governments are because of economic stability. It needs to connect particular current governments with the transition described. This claim about the relative likelihood of different governments doesn't make that connection.
- D
The banker says democracy requires a free-market capitalist economy. D says a free-market economy cannot exist without democracy. Those are different claims. The original requirement leaves open the possibility that a nondemocratic regime has a free-market economy. Ruling that possibility out isn't necessary to defend these governments' transitional measures.
- ECorrect
These countries must have been under totalitarian regimes in the recent past for the banker's explanation of their present measures as part of a transition away from totalitarianism to apply. Otherwise, citing what that transition requires wouldn't answer the criticism of these countries.
E doesn't establish the whole defense by itself. A recent totalitarian past doesn't prove that every current measure is necessary or that a successful transition is underway. It supplies a required piece of the connection, which is what a necessary-assumption question asks for.
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