The Following Questions Refer to the Excerpt Below

question 32

Multiple Choice

The following questions refer to the excerpt below.
"Give us a business man [to] introduce business methods into politics and government"… yet politics remains corrupt… The commercial spirit is the spirit of profit,not patriotism;of credit,not honor;of individual gain,not national prosperity;of trade and dickering,not principle… "Business is business" is not a political sentiment,but our politician has caught it. He takes essentially the same view of the bribe… But there is hope…in the commercialism of our politics. If our political leaders are to be always a lot of political merchants,they will supply any demand we may create. All we have to do is to establish a steady demand for good government."
Lincoln Steffens,The Shame of the Cities,1904
-Which of the following best describes the cause of the problems that Steffens identifies,as seen by reformers like him?

• A) The growth of corporate power
• B) The expansion of opportunities for women and immigrants
• C) The economic instability of the American system
• D) The increasing integration of the United States into the global economy

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Definitions:

Intentional Behavior

Actions that are performed with awareness and purpose towards achieving a specific goal.

Illusory Correlation

The tendency to overestimate the link between variables that are related only slightly or not at all.

Hot Hand Player

The belief or phenomenon where a person is perceived to be more likely to succeed in a task (e.g., scoring in sports) because of previous consecutive successes, despite statistical evidence often suggesting randomness.

Coin Flip

A method of making a binary decision or selecting randomly between two options using the outcome of a tossed coin.