PT156 S4 Q15 ExplanationHistorian: Scholars writing histories of

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   No Impact20% picked this

   The specific factors that cause businesses to do poorly are often not inferable from historical

   This choice, if anything, undermines the idea that historians will be able to look at successful businesses and ascertain exactly what MADE them successful. But that has nothing to do with the conclusion, which is just about whether the historians will end up with a skewed sense of what portion of businesses were successful.

   20%
2. B

   Trap3% picked this

   Those who study past first-person accounts of business strategies inevitably approach them with certain

   Unclear Impact (first person accounts) No Impact (present day cultural assumptions) This choice mentions studying first-person accounts, which are not relevant to the argument. The argument doesn't tell us whether historians are studying first-person accounts, so we wouldn't know what to do with this detail. Even if we did know they approach old business stories with present-day cultural assumptions, that doesn't have any common sense link to "overrating how many businesses in the past were actually successful".

   3%
3. C

   No Impact3% picked this

   The many public legal documents that firms have had to file provide a record that is more objective than that provided by

   This seems to be suggesting an alternate method for what historians could be looking at, as though it would be wiser to look at public legal documents than at firms' internal documents. But not only are we never told whether historians are looking at public or private documents, in either case it doesn't have any impact on whether what they are currently doing is leading them to overestimate the proportion of successful past businesses.

   3%
4. D

   Correct72% picked this

   The records of businesses that have gone bankrupt are destroyed more frequently than the records

   Why this is right

   This option increases the plausibility that historians end up with a distorted sense of past businesses (favoring the more successful ones), since the records don't even exist for them to learn about the businesses that did the worst (went bankrupt). It's a weird answer in the sense that it really just supports the author's opinionated premise, that businesses "probably" end up looking at more at successful firms than unsuccessful ones. It doesn't help at all with the connection between premise and conclusion: "if you're looking more at successful firms, then you'll have a sense of businesses overall that's skewed towards the successful firms".

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

   72%
5. E

   No Impact2% picked this

   Scholars who study businesses of the past are usually trained in the effective techniques

   This choice discusses scholars being trained in effective business techniques, which does not directly relate to overestimating success. The training of scholars is not inherently connected to how they represent business success in history.

   2%