Several years ago, most

Answer choices

1. A

   Weak / Unrelated to Goal3% picked this

   the agency may be unable to sell some of

   We'll almost never see weak wording like "may" in the correct answer to Sufficient Assumption, since we're looking for an answer that guarantees the conclusion is true (follows logically / properly drawn / properly inferred). Since we're trying to prove the idea that "the banking system will not be strengthened", and since we were provided a law that says if X ? banking system won't be strengthened We need an answer to tell us "X", which is that "the former owners will buy back these banks".

   3%
2. B

   Weak / Unrelated to Goal1% picked this

   a single company could buy more than one of

   We'll almost never see weak wording like "could" in the correct answer to Sufficient Assumption, since we're looking for an answer that guarantees the conclusion is true (follows logically / properly drawn / properly inferred). Since we're trying to prove the idea that "the banking system will not be strengthened", and since we were provided a law that says if X ? banking system won't be strengthened We need an answer to tell us "X", which is that "the former owners will buy back these banks".

   1%
3. C

   Out of Scope: overall economy3% picked this

   the country's overall economy is not much stronger than it was when the

   The correct answer on Sufficient Assumption will almost never contain wording we haven't already used in the passage, since it's just trying to patch together loose ends (not create a new loose end by introducing new wording like "overall economy").

   3%
4. D

   Irrelevant Comparison2% picked this

   the banks sold by the agency will be financially weaker than the country's other banks

   We're only here to judge / prove whether the banking system will / won't be strengthened. Wording like "these banks will be weaker than other banks for some time" is a very wishy-washy idea. We need definitive understanding that the banking system isn't strengthened.

   2%
5. E

   Correct92% picked this

   all of the bidders for the banks are their

   Why this is right

   We were looking to hear that "the former owner of these banks will buy them back". If we knew that, it would prove the idea that the banking system will not be strengthened. But since the actual conclusion is just "the agency is unlikely to achieve its goal" we need to prove that "the banking system is likely not going to be strengthened". If all the bidders for the banks are former owners, then it's likely that the former owners of the banks are going to buy them back, so it's likely that the banking system will not be strengthened.

   Skill tested: Sufficient Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   92%