Question 1
At present the Hollywood Restaurant has only standard-height tables. However, many customers come to watch the celebrities who frequent the Hollywood, and they would prefer tall tables with stools because such seating would afford a better view of the celebrities. Moreover, diners seated on stools typically do not stay as long as diners seated at standard-height tables. Therefore, if the Hollywood replaced some of its seating with high tables and stools, its profits would increase.
The argument is vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it gives reason to believe that it is likely that
(A) some celebrities come to the Hollywood to be seen, and so might choose to sit at the tall tables if they were available.
(B) the price of meals ordered by celebrities dining at the Hollywood compensates for the longer time, if any, they spend lingering over their meals.
(C) a customer of the Hollywood who would choose to sit at a tall table would be an exception to the generalization about lingering
(D) a restaurant’s customers who spend less time at their meals typically order less expensive meals than those who remain at their meals longer
(E) with enough tall tables to accommodate all the Hollywood’s customers interested in such seating, there would be no view except of other tall tables.
Question 2
Lark Manufacturing Company initiated a voluntary Quality Circles program for machine operators. Independent surveys of employee attitudes indicated that the machine operators participating in the program were less satisfied with their work situations after two years of the program’s existence than they were at the program’s start. Obviously, any workers who participate in a Quality Circles program will, as a result, become less satisfied with their jobs.
Each of the following, if true, would weaken the conclusion drawn above EXCEPT:
(A) The second survey occurred during a period of recession when rumors of cutbacks and layoffs at Lark Manufacturing were plentiful.
(B) The surveys also showed that those Lark machine operators who neither participated in Quality Circles nor knew anyone who did so reported the same degree of lessened satisfaction with their work situations as did the Lark machine operators who participated in Quality Circles.
(C) While participating in Quality Circles at Lark Manufacturing, machine operators exhibited two of the primary indicators of improved job satisfaction: increased productivity and decreased absenteeism.
(D) Several workers at Lark Manufacturing who had participated in Quality Circles while employed at other companies reported that, while participating in Quality Circles in their previous companies, their work satisfaction had increased.
(E) The machine operators who participated in Quality Circles reported that, when the program started, they felt that participation might improve their work situations.
Question 3
Greek tragedy, one of the enduring pillars of our belief system, dramatized the concept that the misfortune a person suffers is not an accident, but rather a logical outcome of flaws in that person’s nature; the misfortune is thus that person’s “fault.” Nonetheless, today the public broadly supports bankruptcy protection, family welfare and other “social safety net” programs that shield the destitute in the face of their hardships, at taxpayer expense.
Which of the following, if true, would best resolve the paradox in the statements above?
A. The ancient Greeks had few, if any, such social safety net programs in their society.
B. The majority of the public is more familiar with the works of Shakespeare than those of Greek tragedy.
C. Some people insist that society, not the individual, is to blame for most accidents.
D. Many people in financial difficulties feel too ashamed to declare bankruptcy or to take advantage of other social safety net programs.
E. The religions practiced by most people today strongly encourage people to contribute to charities that assist innocent people injured in natural disasters, such as hurricanes.
Question 4
Nearly all mail that is correctly addressed arrives at its destination within two business days of being sent. In fact, correctly addressed mail takes longer than this only when it is damaged in transit. Overall, however, most mail arrives three business days or more after being sent.
If the statements above are true, which one of the following must be true?
(A) A large proportion of the mail that is correctly addressed is damaged in transit.
(B) No incorrectly addressed mail arrives within two business days of being sent.
(C) Most mail that arrives within two business days of being sent is correctly addressed.
(D) A large proportion of mail is incorrectly addressed.
(E) More mail arrives within two business days of being sent than arrives between two and three business days after being sent.
Question 5
Biologists have noted reproductive abnormalities in fish that are immediately downstream of paper mills. One possible cause is dioxin, which paper mills release daily and which can alter the concentration of hormones in fish. However, dioxin is unlikely to be the cause, since the fish recover normal hormone concentrations relatively quickly during occasional mill shutdowns and dioxin decomposes very slowly in the environment.
Which one of the following statements, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
(A) Some of the studies that show that fish recover quickly during shutdowns were funded by paper manufacturers.
(B) The rate at which dioxin decomposes varies depending on the conditions to which it is exposed.
(C) Normal river currents carry the dioxin present in the river far downstream in a few hours.
(D) Some of the fish did not recover rapidly from the physiological changes that were induced by the changes in hormone concentrations.
(E) The connection between hormone concentrations and reproductive abnormalities is not thoroughly understood.
Question 6
Surveys show that every year only 10 percent of cigarette smokers switch brands. Yet the manufacturers have been spending an amount equal to 10 percent of their gross receipts on cigarette promotion in magazines. It follows from these figures that inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands did not pay, and that cigarette companies would have been no worse off economically if they had dropped their advertising.
Of the following, the best criticism of the conclusion that inducing cigarette smokers to switch brands did not pay is that the conclusion is based on
(A) computing advertising costs as a percentage of gross receipts, not of overall costs
(B) past patterns of smoking and may not carry over to the future
(C) the assumption that each smoker is loyal to a single brand of cigarettes at any one time
(D) the assumption that each manufacturer produces only one brand of cigarettes
(E) figures for the cigarette industry as a whole and may not hold for a particular company
Question 7
Smoking in bed has long been the main cause of home fires. Despite a significant decline in cigarette smoking in the last two decades, however, there has been no comparable decline in the number of people killed in home fires.
Each one of the following statements, if true, over the last two decades, helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy above EXCEPT:
(A) Compared to other types of home fires, home fires caused by smoking in bed usually cause relatively little damage before they are extinguished.
(B) Home fires caused by smoking in bed often break out after the home’s occupants have fallen asleep.
(C) Smokers who smoke in bed tend to be heavy smokers who are less likely to quit smoking than are smokers who do not smoke in bed.
(D) An increasing number of people have been killed in home fires that started in the kitchen.
(E) Population densities have increased, with the result that one home fire can cause more deaths than in previous decades.
Question 8
Chronic back pain is usually caused by a herniated or degenerated spinal disk. In most cases the disk will have been damaged years before chronic pain develops, and in fact an estimated one in five people over the age of 30 has a herniated or degenerated disk that shows no chronic symptoms. If chronic pain later develops in such a case, it is generally brought about by a deterioration of the abdominal and spinal muscles caused by insufficient exercise.
The statements above, if true, most strongly support which one of the following?
(A) Four out of five people over the age of 30 can be sure they will never develop chronic back pain.
(B) People who exercise their abdominal and spinal muscles regularly are sure to be free from chronic back pain.
(C) Patients rarely suffer even mild and fleeting back pain at the time that a spinal disk first becomes herniated or degenerated.
(D) Doctors can accurately predict which people who do not have chronic back pain will develop it in the future.
(E) There is a strategy that can be effective in delaying or preventing the onset of pain from a currently asymptomatic herniated or degenerated spinal disk.
Question 9
A large corporation is currently in the middle of turnover, as many of the older employees are retiring around the same time. With a weak economic situation, the corporation has to consider its hiring options carefully. Most of the retiring employees have been with the company for many years and have acquired knowledge and skills that would require the corporation to hire additional employees to take over their positions. The CEO of the corporation has decided not to replace all of the retiring employees, however. Instead, the corporation will be hiring fewer employees. The corporation does not expect to see a reduction in the work output, but it does plan to see a reduction in salaries.
Which of the following best explains the decision by the corporation to hire fewer employees?
(A) The corporation is relocating many of the jobs to an overseas branch, thus reducing the jobs required at its primary U.S. location.
(B) Many of the retiring employees will continue to work part-time to fill in the gaps with the reduced number of jobs.
(C) The corporation is working with a headhunting firm in order to bring on versatile workers who will accept diverse employment requirements for a lower salary.
(D) The corporation has reviewed the open positions in the company, and the CEO feels as though many of those positions are outdated and can be eliminated.
(E) The corporation is reducing its pay for employees and is altering the retirement plan available to retiring employees in order to save money.
Question 10
Columnist: Shortsighted motorists learn the hard way about the wisdom of preventive auto maintenance; such maintenance almost always pays off in the long run. Our usually shortsighted city council should be praised for using similar wisdom when they hired a long-term economic development adviser. In hiring this adviser, the council made an investment that is likely to have a big payoff in several years. Other cities in this region that have devoted resources to economic development planning have earned large returns on such an investment.
Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the columnist’s argument?
(A) Even some cars that receive regular preventive maintenance break down, requiring costly repairs.
(B) The columnist’s city has a much smaller population and economy than the other cities did when they began devoting resources to economic development planning.
(C) Most motorists who fail to perform preventive maintenance on their cars do so for nonfinancial reasons.
(D) Qualified economic development advisers generally demand higher salaries than many city councils are willing to spend.
(E) Cities that have earned large returns due to hiring economic development advisers did not earn any returns at all in the advisers’ first few years of employment.
Answer
1C – 2E – 3E – 4D – 5C – 6E – 7B – 8E – 9C – 10B
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