The Following Questions Refer to the Excerpt Below

question 21

Multiple Choice

The following questions refer to the excerpt below.
"[Spaniards'] reason for killing and destroying such an infinite number of souls is that the Christians have an ultimate aim,which is to acquire gold,and to swell themselves with riches in a very brief time and thus rise to a high estate disproportionate to their merits. It should be kept in mind that their insatiable greed and ambition,the greatest ever seen in the world,is the cause of their villainies.And also,those lands are so rich and felicitous,the native people so meek and patient,so easy to subject,that our Spaniards have no more consideration for them than beasts."
Bartolomé de las Casas,A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies,1552
-De las Casas would have agreed with which of the following interpretations?

• A) Christians are all motivated by greed.
• B) Plantation-based agricultural systems in the Americas required the exploitation of local resources.
• C) The Portuguese treated natives with dignity and respect.
• D) European treatment of natives was the result of cultural and linguistic misunderstandings.

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Definitions:

Present Value Payback Period

A capital budgeting technique that calculates the period of time required for the present value of future cash flows to cover the initial investment cost.

NPV

Net Present Value, a calculation used to determine the current value of a series of future cash flows.

PI

The profitability index (PI), in financial management, is a method used to evaluate the desirability of an investment or project, calculating the ratio of the present value of future cash flows to the initial investment.

Cost of Capital

A financial metric representing the minimum return that a company must earn on its existing asset base to satisfy its creditors, owners, and other providers of capital.