PrepTest 128, Section 1, Question 13

Working the answers

• A

  This does give punishment a potential benefit: people behave more responsibly afterward. Keep it in contention. But it doesn't tell us whether that improvement outweighs the lost earnings, disrupted businesses, and other economic costs of imprisonment.

• B

  Financial failure can hurt the local economy even after workers find jobs. That doesn't compare harsh punishment with a less punitive response or show that punishment would have produced a better result.

• C

  More filings don't by themselves establish a less healthy economy. The opening already acknowledges increased reliance on bankruptcy; the author's defense is about the economic consequences of the response to insolvency.

• D

  This is relevant but limited: growth followed liquidation despite job losses. It doesn't establish that liquidation caused the growth or that the economy would have done worse if the company had continued operating.

• E
  Correct

  Comparable countries that still imprison debtors have greater economic health. That directly challenges the author's economic case against imprisonment. It doesn't prove that prison caused the difference, but it puts more pressure on the argument than A's narrower evidence about individual responsibility. That's why our initial interest in A should give way to E.