Read the following passage and answer the items that follow. Your answers to these items should be based on the passage only.
Many nations now place their faith in capitalism and governments choose it as the strategy to create wealth for their people. The spectacular economic growth seen in Brazil, China and India after the liberalization of their economies is proof of its enormous potential and success. However, the global banking crisis and the economic recession have left many bewildered. The debates tend to focus on free market operations and forces, their efficiency and their ability for self-correction. Issues of justice, integrity and honesty are rarely elaborated to highlight the failure of the global banking system. The apologists of the system continue to justify the success of capitalism and argue that the recent crisis was a blip.
Their arguments betray an ideological bias with the assumptions that an unregulated market is fair and competent, and that the exercise of private greed will be in the larger public interest.
Few recognize the bidirectional relationship between capitalism and greed: that each reinforces the other Surely, a more honest conceptualization of the conflicts of interest among the rich and powerful players who have benefited from the system, their biases and ideology is needed; the focus on the wealth creation should also highlight the resultant gross inequity.
With reference to ‘ideological bias’, the passage implies that:
The passage explicitly states that the "ideological bias" is characterized by "the assumptions that an unregulated market is fair and competent." Therefore, option (3) accurately reflects this specific assumption attributed to the apologists of the system within the context of their ideological bias.
Options (1) and (2) are incorrect because they misrepresent the nature of the assumption. The passage links the ideological bias to the belief that an unregulated market is both fair and competent. Separating these qualities or negating one of them, as in "fair but not competent" or "not fair but competent," distorts the passage's description of the bias.
Option (4) is incorrect as it directly contradicts the passage. The text clearly identifies an "ideological bias" and specifies its content. Stating that the free market is "neither fair nor biased" denies the existence of the bias explicitly mentioned and defined in the passage.