A minority
A minority but influential investor in Quell has recently claimed that the company’s stock is undervalued, citing as evidence the announced plan of Quell’s CEO, who is the majority shareholder, to sell the company in a short period of time. According to the minority investor, the CEO is permitting or even encouraging an undervalued stock price so that he may get the company sold and liquidate his stake in the company. By accusing the CEO of having personal motives allow the stock price to become distorted, however, the minority investor is guilty of the precise accusation that he himself is making. This investor is known for using his influence to attempt to sway public opinion and meddle in otherwise well-calibrated deals in order to drive up share prices for his personal financial benefit.
In the argument given, the two boldfaced portions play which of the following roles?
(A) The first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second provides reasoning to undermine the support for the position being opposed.
(B) The first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second is reasoning that has been used to support the position being opposed.
(C) The first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second states the conclusion of the argument as a whole.
(D) The first is reasoning that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second provides information to undermine the force of that reasoning.
(E) The first is reasoning that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second states the conclusion of the argument as a whole
My Ques: Please help me with this one. unable to understand how second BF is the conclusion
source-gmatprep
Hi Riya,
In a boldfaced question, follow these steps
- Identify the main point of the author (the conclusion/position/argument).
- Once you’ve identified the conclusion/main point, ask yourself what is the relationship between the other boldfaces and the conclusion (support/refute)
- Based on which boldface you are sure of, start eliminating answers
- For the remaining choices, analyze the complete answer choice
Let’s apply this process here:
- Best way to identify conclusion is to ask yourself what’s the author’s opinion on the central topic in the passage. Here the topic is what the minority but influential investor has to say. The author’s final judgement on what this person says is that “the minority investor is guilty of the precise accusation that he himself is making”. Hence the second boldface becomes the conclusion of the author
- The first boldface is the investor’s position and the author is clearly against this
- If we start from the first boldface, options D and E can be eliminated because it’s not reasoning that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes
- Among A, B and C, since we know that the second boldface is the final point of the author, we can safely pick C as the answer
Hope this helps!
