Multiple choice

Directions: Read the paragraph and answer the question that follows.
The very act of placing our assets in the hands of other people requires immense trust. An untrustworthy stockbroker or insurance agent, like an untrustworthy physician or attorney, finds few takers for his or her services. Financial scandals shock us precisely because they involve people and institutions that we should be able to trust. Finance is not a clearly identifiable occupation or profession and involves a highly technical body of knowledge, but people who are trained in finance engage in a much wider range of activities. Accountants, by contrast, do much the same work in every setting, and the different accounting functions — public and management accounting or external and internal auditing — raise similar ethical problems that can be identified and addressed in a code of ethics.
What is the primary purpose of the passage?

  1. The accounting ethics focuses on the ethical problems of a relatively uniform activity.

  2. A moment's reflection reveals that finance would be impossible without ethics.

  3. Finance is not a limited field, in fact, it involves broad range of activities.

  4. <div align="justify">The field of finance requires immense trust as its one essential characteristic.

Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

Option (1) is in tune with the last statement of the passage, thereby, narrowing down our approach to accountants, which is cited to elaborate on the ethics in finance. Hence, (1) is ruled out. Option (3) is contrary to the passage (“Finance is not … activities” gives the clue), hence, it can be ruled out. Both options (2) and (4) are true according to the passage, thus let's find out the more appropriate option. 'Immense trust' in (4) is one of its essential characteristics, but it narrows down our approach. Therefore, (2) would be more appropriate as it emphasizes on 'ethics in finance' which is more general and cover the entire field of finance. Hence, (2) is the answer.