old prep cr2-59

akness

59.     (33759-!-item-!-188;#058&007597)



Bank depositors in the United States are all financially protected against bank failure because the government insures all individuals' bank deposits.  An economist argues that this insurance is partly responsible for the high rate of bank failures, since it removes from depositors any financial incentive to find out whether the bank that holds their money is secure against failure.  If depositors were more selective, then banks would need to be secure in order to compete for depositors' money.



Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the economist's argument?



(A) Before the government started to insure depositors against bank failure, there was a lower rate of bank failure than there is now.

(B) When the government did not insure deposits, frequent bank failures occurred as a result of depositors' fears of losing money in bank failures.

(C) Surveys show that a significant proportion of depositors are aware that their deposits are insured by the government.

(D) There is an upper limit on the amount of an individual's deposit that the government will insure, but very few individuals' deposits exceed this limit.

(E) The security of a bank against failure depends on the percentage of its assets that are loaned out and also on how much risk its loans involve.

注：正确答案是B。

请教：我觉得这道题应该选E。因为，问题问的是什么选项削弱了经济学家的argument。 而本题中经济学家的argument是：银行倒闭部分是因为政府的insure。E说明了银行倒闭的原因是它的assets，正好削弱了经济学家所说的银行倒闭是因为政府的insure。

非常希望大家能讨论这道题。谢谢！

sayysong

我认为经济学家argue的，即政府insure的是 individual deposit，而E所说的是围绕着银行资产的 loan 部分，正好是government insurance 没有cover的部分。所以起不到weaken的作用。

sayysong

补充其他几个选项的个人分析。
A是strengthen，没有政府介入之前反而更低的倒闭率，所以support了经济学家的看法。
B是weaken，一旦没有政府介入，银行倒闭得更多。所以support了government insurance的政策，即反对了经济学家的看法。
C提到了储户心理，但题干中并未对储户心理与银行倒闭之间的关系做出任何说明，所以无关
D提到了保险的上限，而仅能推导出大多数储户都被政府的保护政策所cover。同C，与倒闭之间的关系不明