Reading ComprehensionDifficulty: Hard

PT128 S1 P2 Q13 Explanation

Bankruptcy Law

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Passage

In many Western societies, modern bankruptcy laws have undergone a shift away from a focus on punishment and toward a focus on bankruptcy as a remedy for individuals and corporations in financial trouble—and, perhaps unexpectedly, for their creditors. This shift has coincided with an ever-increasing reliance on declarations of bankruptcy by individuals the needs of an interdependent society, serve the varied interests of the greatest number of citizens.

The harsh punishment for insolvency in centuries past included imprisonment of individuals and dissolution of enterprises, and reflected societies' beliefs that the accumulation of excessive debt resulted either from debtors' unwillingness to meet, obligations or from their negligence. Insolvent debtors were thought to be breaking sacrosanct social contracts; placing debtors in prison example, an auto manufacturer, its dissolution would cause significant unemployment and the disruption of much-needed services.

Modern bankruptcy law has attempted to address the shortcomings of the punitive approach. Two beliefs underlie this shift: that the public good ought to be paramount in considering the financial insolvency of individuals and corporations; and that the public good is better served by allowing debt-heavy corporations to continue to operate, and individuals to a degree of economic health and providing creditors with the best hope of collecting.

What this question is testing

Weaken

Your task

Find the choice that makes the argument's conclusion less likely to be true.

Common trap

Answers that look negative but attack a claim the argument never relied on.

Winning move

Find the assumption the argument depends on, then pick the choice that undermines it.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
13.

Which one of the following, if true, would most weaken the author's argument against harsh

Answer choices

  1. Too Weak21% picked this

    Extensive study of the economic and legal history of many countries has shown that most individuals who served prison time for bankruptcy

    The issue is not personal economic responsibility but rather overall economic prosperity for the society. This answer fails to consider the creditors and employees and the overall economic cost of punitive bankruptcy laws.

  2. Strengthens7% picked this

    The bankruptcy of a certain large company has had a significant negative impact on the local economy even though virtually all of the affected

    This supports the author’s point that punitive bankruptcy laws are less beneficial to the economic position of a society than modern bankruptcy laws.

  3. Too Weak5% picked this

    Once imprisonment was no longer a consequence of insolvency, bankruptcy filings increased dramatically, then leveled off before increasing

    The author’s argument already conceded that the number of bankruptcy filings increased with the arrival of modern bankruptcy laws.

  4. Weaker/Mixed Impact12% picked this

    The court-ordered liquidation of a large and insolvent company's assets threw hundreds of people out of work, but the local economy nevertheless demonstrated

    This sounds like the punitive model did some of the stuff the author was worried about (like throwing hundreds of people out of work), while also doing something the author wouldn't expect out of the punitive model (robust growth in the local economy in the immediate aftermath). On one hand, it's an inferior answer to (E) because it has mixed impact (part of it strengthens the author's case, in saying that the punitive model puts people out of work). But it's also inferior because the weakening part is far weaker in impact than (E)'s weakening part. Here we get local economic growth in the immediate aftermath. That's limited in scope and duration. With (E), we get greater economic health overall for the whole country (which sounds more like the "public good" that the author thinks is paramount).

  5. Correct55% picked this

    Countries that continue to imprison debtors enjoy greater economic health than do comparable countries that have

    Why this is right

    The author makes an economic argument against punitive bankruptcy laws (first and third paragraph). She favors modern laws because they're better for the economy overall. But this answer heavily undercuts that assumption. It's saying that the punitive model is correlated with overall economic health.

    Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

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