Mr. Mead: Turning this subway system over to private ownership will surely not make it financially viable. After all, the reason the system is now government-owned is precisely that in 1979 its original private owners went bankrupt operating it.

Ms. Gallis: But remember that government price controls were keeping fares unreasonably low in the 1970’s.

Of the following, the best assessment of the logical role played by Ms. Gallis’ response is that her response

A. offers additional evidence for the correctness of Mr. Mead’s conclusion

B. states one of Mr. Mead’s tacit assumptions

C. contradicts Mr. Mead’s factual claims about the system’s original owners

D. identifies a weakness in the evidence Mr. Mead uses as a basis for his conclusion

E. implies that Mr. Mead’s conclusion is correct, but not for the reasons Mr. Mead gives