PT158 S4 Q1 ExplanationThe government's tax collection agency

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   No Impact1% picked this

   The plan to crack down on violations of corporate income tax law is part of a broad

   Knowing that the corporate audits are part of a broader campaign against corporate misconduct does not explain why none of them have been completed. The argument's concern is specifically about the lack of completed audits, and expanding the scope of the initiative does not address the timeline issue. A broader campaign might involve more audits or different types of enforcement, but that has no bearing on whether any individual corporate audit has been finished. The question remains: if the crackdown is genuine, why has nothing been completed in a year? This answer leaves that question entirely unanswered.

   1%
2. B

   Out of Scope14% picked this

   The number of personal income tax returns audited over the past year is greater than

   The argument is entirely about corporate tax audits. What the agency does with personal income tax returns is a separate enforcement activity that has no bearing on whether the corporate crackdown is genuine. Even if the agency has dramatically increased its personal income tax auditing, that says nothing about why corporate audits remain incomplete. These are different types of audits targeting different populations with different procedures and timelines. Introducing personal tax audit data shifts attention to an irrelevant metric rather than addressing the specific gap the argument identifies: zero completed corporate audits after a year of a supposedly genuine corporate crackdown.

   14%
3. C

   Strengthens, If Anything7% picked this

   Most audits of corporate income tax returns do not reveal any

   If most completed audits do not reveal significant violations, this actually makes the agency's failure to complete any audits look worse, not better. The argument concludes the crackdown is not genuine because nothing has been completed. To weaken that conclusion, we need a reason why the absence of completed audits is consistent with genuine effort. This answer does not provide one. Instead, it suggests that even when audits are completed, they tend to come up empty — which, if anything, bolsters the skeptic's case by adding a second layer of futility. Not only has nothing been finished, but even finished audits are typically unproductive. This pushes in the wrong direction entirely.

   7%
4. D

   Correct77% picked this

   It generally takes longer than one year to complete an audit of a corporate

   Why this is right

   The argument's logic depends on a hidden assumption: a genuine crackdown would produce completed audits within one year. This answer directly attacks that assumption by establishing that corporate audits inherently take longer than a year to complete. If the audit process itself requires more than twelve months, then the absence of completed audits is not evidence of inaction — it is simply evidence that the work is still in progress. The agency could have initiated dozens of thorough audits on the day of the announcement, and every single one of them would still be incomplete after twelve months. This provides an innocent, alternative explanation for the apparently damning evidence: the audits exist and are underway, but the process has not yet run its course. By showing that the timeline expectation is unreasonable, this answer severs the connection between "no results yet" and "no genuine effort."

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

   77%
5. E

   Strengthens1% picked this

   Over the last five years, fewer audits of corporate income tax returns have been completed than in

   A five-year decline in completed audits reveals a longer-term pattern of weakening enforcement, which actually supports the skeptic's conclusion rather than undermining it. The argument claims the crackdown is not genuine, and a multi-year trend of declining audit activity makes that claim more plausible, not less. If the agency has been pulling back from enforcement for half a decade, the current zero-completion figure looks like the continuation of a broader retreat rather than an isolated anomaly. A weakening answer needs to make the crackdown look genuine despite the lack of results. This answer makes it look like part of a sustained pattern of doing less — the opposite of what is needed.

   1%