The constitution of Country F

Answer choices

1. A

   Compatible4% picked this

   The government will sell StateAir, a state-owned airline. The highest bid received was from a corporation that was owned entirely by citizens of Country

   This was sold for the highest bid, so we followed requirement 1. Noncitizens purchased a minority share, so it sounds like citizens retained their majority share (since they previously owned it entirely). So this seems to have met both requirements.

   4%
2. B

   Compatible4% picked this

   The government has agreed to sell National Silver, a state-owned mine, to a corporation. Although citizens of Country F have majority ownership of the

   Citizens have majority ownership. We don't learn anything about whether the price is highest or not. So this abides by requirement 2 and doesn't give enough info about requirement 1 to know if it's being violated.

   4%
3. C

   Unclear if Violates35% picked this

   The government will sell PetroNat, a state-owned oil company. World Oil Company has made one of the highest offers for PetroNat, but World Oil's

   If this ended up being our best answer, we could take it but it's not clear that this sale violates either of the requirements. It sounds like if we went with World Oil, then we wouldn't be able to ensure that citizens have majority ownership, because the ownership structure is so convoluted that you can't ascertain such info. But, we don't have to go with World Oil. They didn't make the highest offer. They made one of the highest offers. So it's possible that we just sell to one of the other companies that made one of the highest offers, and hopefully with them we can ensure that citizens own a majority stake.

   35%
4. D

   Compatible6% picked this

   The government will sell National Telephone, a state-owned utility. The highest bid received was from a company in which citizens of Country F have

   We actually don't know which one they're selling to, but if they sell it to the highest bid, they'll still have majority share for citizens, so they don't need to violate any requirements.

   6%
5. E

   Correct51% picked this

   The government will sell StateRail, a state-owned railway. The government must place significant restrictions on who can purchase StateRail to ensure that citizens of

   Why this is right

   This puts the two requirements into mutually exclusive tension. In order to ensure majority ownership for citizens, they'll have to give up highest price. So there's no way to get both of the requirements. The second sentence by itself sort of does it. In order to ensure that citizens have majority ownership, we have to restrict who can purchase StateRail. That means we're not selling it "on the open market". It's a restricted market. The idea that "restrictions will reduce the price" we get for selling it is saying that "the selling price among these restricted buyers will be lower than what we could have gotten in an unrestricted (open) market". By having to add restrictions for majority ownership, we will make less money than we would make if we sold the railway without those restrictions. Adding those restrictions reduces our maximum selling price from what it could otherwise be. But since they're required to ensure majority ownership, we know that accomplishing one goal would thwart the other.

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

   51%