Question

Write the gist of this paragraph

The right to do business in a town was a guarded privilege. The merchants and artisans banded together in special organizations for each trade or craft, called guilds. Only members of the guilds could sell goods or practice a trade within the town walls. Guild members all charged the same prices for the same quality work, and they limited the number of people permitted to follow a particular occupation. The shoemakers’ guild, for example, wanted to make sure that there were never more shoemakers in a particular town than could make a good living there.

Answer 1

Guilds regulated the price and type of goods and trade within a town.

Step-by-step explanation:

Answer 2

The gist of this paragraph is "Guilds limited the number of people allowed to do business in towns."

Step-by-step explanation:

A gist is supposed to be brief, and it should state what a text is mainly about within 20 words or less, so you have to grab the main points only. It's basically a summary, but shorter.

In your particular paragraph, the main point lies here:

[Guilds] limited the number of people permitted to follow a particular occupation.

But, how do we know that?

Well, there is this one, specifically potent detail that gives it all:

"The shoemakers’ guild, for example, wanted to make sure that there were never more shoemakers in a particular town than could make a good living there."

I don't know if this detail is that strong to support that claim, but it suggests that for the shoemakers' businesses, they had to limit the amount of people there since if there's more, they might not make a good living.