MCAT Critical Analysis and Reasoning Skills Question 11: Answer and Explanation

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Test Information

Question: 11

5. Some scholars have argued that in response to the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the US federal government did less to protect citizens whose homes were taken away in fraudulent foreclosures than to defend the banks that engaged in this criminal behavior. If true, what impact does this have on the passage?

  • A. It challenges the author's central argument.
  • B. It supports the author's central argument.
  • C. It weakens the assertion that the people have exchanged one master for another.
  • D. It strengthens the claim that the wealthy shaped the creation of the US Constitution.

Correct Answer: B

Explanation:

The situation described in the question stem seems to echo the idea from the last sentence, that the US federal government is "ultimately in thrall to the nouveau aristocracy of corporate 'persons' and the rapacious class of executives that constitute the homunculi within." This is an aspect of the author's central argument, that the people have been disempowered as more power has been accumulated in the federal government, and that this government represents the interests of the wealthy first and foremost. Thus, choice (B) is right.

(A) Opposite. As explained above, the author's argument is actually bolstered by the new information.

(C) Opposite. If anything, this claim would be strengthened, since the evidence in the question stem makes it clear that the people are not in charge.

(D) While the new situation makes it clear that the wealthy have influence in the 21st century, this in itself proves nothing about what happened in the 18th century, when the new Constitution was created and ratified (explained in P4).

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