TEST 9 CRITICAL REASONING 2_LSAT
section Ⅳ
time—35 minutes
25 questions
directions: the questions in this section are based on the reasoning contained in brief statements or passages. for some questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. however, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question. you should not make assumptions that are by commonsense standards implausible, superfluous, or incompatible with the passage. after you have chosen the best answer, blacken the corresponding space on your answer sheet.
1. the cafeteria at acme company can offer only four main dishes at lunchtime, and the same four choices have been offered for years. recently mushroom casserole was offered in place of one of the other main dishes for two days, during which more people chose mushroom casserole than any other main dish. clearly, if the cafeteria wants to please its customers, mushroom casserole should replace one of the regular dishes as a permanent part of the menu.
the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it fails to consider
(a) the proportion of acme company employees who regularly eat lunch in the company cafeteria
(b) whether any of the ingredients used in the cafeteria’s recipe for mushroom casserole are included in any of the regular main dishes
(c) a desire for variety as a reason for people’s choice of mushroom casserole during the days it was offered
(d) what foods other than main dishes are regularly offered at lunchtime by the cafeteria
(e) whether other meals besides lunch are served in the acme company cafeteria
2. when old-grow forests are cleared of tall trees, more sunlight reaches the forest floor. this results in a sharp increase in the population of leafy shrubs on which the mule deer depend for food. yet mule deer herds that inhabit cleared forests are less well-nourished than are herds living in old-growth forests.
which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent paradox?
(a) mule deer have enzyme-rich saliva and specialized digestive organs that enable the deer to digest tough plants inedible to other deer species.
(b) mule deer herds that inhabit cleared forests tend to have more female with young offspring and fewer adult males than do other mule deer populations.
(c) mule deer populations are spread throughout western north america and inhabit hot, sunny climates as well as cool, we climates.
(d) as plants receive more sunlight, they produce higher amounts of tannins, compounds that inhibit digestion of the plants’ proteins.
(e) insect parasites, such as certain species of ticks, that feed primary on mule deer often dwell in trees, from which they drop onto passing deer.
3. genevieve: increasing costs have led commercial airlines to cut back on airplane maintenance. also, reductions in public spending have led to air traffic control centers being underfunded and understaffed. for these and other reasons it is becoming quite unsafe to fly, and so one should avoid doing it.
harold: your reasoning may be sound, but i can hardly accept your conclusion when you yourself have recently been flying on commercial airlines even more than before.
which one of the following relies on a questionable technique most similar to that used in harold’s reply to genevieve?
(a) david says that the new film is not very good, but he has not seen it himself, so i don’t accept his opinion.
(b) a long time ago maria showed me a great way to cook lamb, but for medical reasons she no longer eats red meat, so i’ll cook something else for dinner tonight.
(c) susan has been trying to persuade me to go rock climbing with her, claiming that it’s quite safe, but last week she fell and broke her collarbone, so i don’t believe her.
(d) pat has shown me research that proves that eating raw green vegetables is very beneficial and that ones should eat them daily, but i don’t believe it, since she hardly ever eats raw green vegetables.
(e) gabriel has all the qualifications we have specified for the job and has much relevant work experience, but i don’t believe we should hire him, because when he worked in a similar position before his performance was mediocre.
4. all people residing in the country of gradara approve of legislation requiring that certain hazardous waste be disposed of by being burned in modern high-temperature incinerators. however, waste disposal companies planning to build such incinerators encounter fierce resistance to their applications for building permits from the residents of every gradaran community that those companies propose as an incinerator site.
which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the residents’ simultaneously hol
ding both of the positions ascribe them?
(a) high-temperature incineration minimizes the overall risk to the human population of he country from the wastes being disposed of but it concentrates the remaining risk in a small number of incineration sites.
(b) high-temperature incineration is more expensive than any of the available alternatives would be and the higher costs would be recovered through higher product prices.
(c) high-temperature incineration will be carried out by private companies rather than by a government agency so that the government will not be requited to police itself.
(d) the toxin fumes generated within a high-temperature incinerator can be further treated so that all toxic residues from a properly operating incinerator are solids.
(e) the substantial cost of high-temperature incineration can be partially offset by revenue from sales of electric energy generated as a by-product of incineration.
5.elena: while i was at the dog show, every dog that growled at me was a white poodle, and every white poodle i saw growled at me.
which one of the following can be properly inferred from elena’s statement?
(a) the only white dogs that elena saw at the dog show were poodles.
(b) there were no gray poodles at the dog show.
(c) at the dog show, no gray dogs growled at elena.
(d) all the white dogs that elena saw growled at her.
(e) elena did not see any gray poodles at the dog show.
questions 6-7
derek: we must exploit available resources in developing effective anticancer drugs such as the one made from mature pacific yew trees. although the yew population might be threatened, the trees should be harvested now, since an effective synthetic version of the yew’s anticancer chemical could take years to develop.
lola: not only are mature yews very rare, but most are located in areas where logging is prohibited to protect the habitat of the endangered spotted owl. despite our eagerness to take advantage of a new medical breakthrough, we should wait for a synthetic drug rather than threaten the survival of both the yew and the owl, which could have far-reaching consequences for an entire ecosystem.
6. which one of the following is the main point at issue between lola and derek?
(a) whether the harvesting of available pacific yews would have far-reaching environmental repercussions
(b) whether the drugs that are effective against potentially deadly diseases should be based on synthetic rather than naturally occurring chemicals
(c) whether it is justifiable to wait until a synthetic drug can be developed when the capacity for producing the yew-derived drug already exists
(d) the extent of the environmental disaster that would result if both the pacific yew and the spotted owl were to become extinct
(e) whether environmental considerations should ever have any weight when human lives are at stake
7. lola’s position most closely conforms to which one of the following principles?
(a) unless people’s well-being is threatened, there should be no higher priority than preserving endangered plant and animal populations.
(b) medical researchers should work with environmentalists to come to an agreement about the fate of the pacific yew and the spotted owl.
(c) environmental concerns should play a role in decisions concerning medical research only if human lives are not at stake.
(d) only medical breakthroughs that could save human lives would justify threatening the environment.
(e) avoiding actions that threaten an enure ecosystem takes precedence over immediately providing advantage to a restricted group of people.
8. the director of a secondary school where many students were having severe academic problems impaneled a committee to study the matter. the committee reported that these students were having academic problems because they spent large amounts of time on school sports and too little time studying. the director then prohibited all students who were having academic problems from taking part in sports in which they were active. he stated that this would ensure that such students would do well academically.
the reasoning on which the director bases his statement is not sound because he fails to establish that
(a) some students who spend time on sports do not have academic problems
(b) all students who do well academically do so because of time saved by not participating in sports
(c) at least some of the time the students will save by not participating in sports will be spent on solving their academic problems
(d) no students who do well academically spend time on sports
(e) the quality of the school’s sports program would not suffer as a result of the ban
（原文如此）
9. it can safely be concluded that there are at least as m
any trees in seclee as there are in martown.
from which one of the following does the conclusion logically follow?
(a) more trees were planted in seclee in the past two years than in martown.
(b) seclee is the region within which martown is located.
(c) martown is suffering from an epidemic of tree-virus infection.
(d) the average annual rainfall for seclee is greater than the average annual rainfall for martown.
(e) the average number of trees cut down annually in martown is higher than in seclee.
questions 10-11
a distemper virus has caused two-thirds of the seal population in the north sea to die since may 1988. the explanation for the deaths cannot rest here, however. there must be a reason the normally latent virus could prevail so suddenly: clearly the severe pollution of the north sea waters must have weakened the immune system of the seals so that they could no longer withstand the virus.
10. the argument concerning the immune system of the seals presupposes which one of the following?
(a) there has been a gradual decline in the seal population of the north sea during the past two centuries.
(b) no further sources of pollution have been added since may 1988 to the already existing sources of pollution in the north sea.
(c) there was no sudden mutation in the distemper virus which would have allowed the virus successfully to attack healthy north sea seals by may 1988.
(d) pollution in the north sea is no greater than pollution in the mediterranean sea, off the coast of north america, or in the sea of japan.
(e) some species that provide food for the seals have nearly become extinct as a result of the pollution.
11. which one of the following, if true, most strongly supports the explanation given in the argument?
(a) at various times during the last ten years, several species of shellfish and seabirds in the north sea have experienced unprecedented steep drops in population.
(b) by reducing pollution at its source, northern europe and scandinavia have been taking the lead in preventing pollution from reaching the waters of the north sea.
(c) for many years, fish for human consumption have been taken from the waters of the north sea.
(d) there are two species of seal found throughout the north sea area, the common seal and the gray seal.
(e) the distemper caused by the virus was a disease that was new to the population of north sea seals in may 1988, and so the seals’ immune systems were unprepared to counter it.
12. it is clear that none of the volleyball players at yesterday’s office beach party came to work today since everyone who played volleyball at that party got badly sunburned and no one at work today is even slightly sunburned.
which one of the following exhibits a pattern of reasoning that most closely parallels that in the argument above?
(a) since everyone employed by trf who was given the opportunity to purchase dental insurance did so and everyone who purchased dental insurance saw a dentist, it is clear that no one who failed to see a dentist is employed by trf.
(b) since no one who was promoted during the past year failed to attend the awards banquet, evidently none of the office managers attended the banquet this year since they were all denied promotion.
(c) since the donnely report was not finished on time, no one in john’s group could have been assigned to contribute to that report since everyone in john’s group has a reputation for getting assignments in on time.
(d) everyone with an office on the second floor works directly for the president and, as a result, no one with a second floor office will take a july vacation because no one who works for the president will be able to take time off during july.
(e) since all of the people who are now on the mxm corporation payroll have been employed in the same job for the past five years, it is clear that no one who frequently changes jobs is likely to be hired by mxm.
questions 13-14
the dean of computing must be respected by the academic staff and be competent to oversee the use of computers on campus. the only deans whom academics respect are those who hold doctoral degrees, and only someone who really knows about computers can competently oversee the use of computers on campus.
furthermore, the board of trustees has decided that the dean of computing must be selected from among this university’s staff. therefore, the dean of computing must be a professor from this university’s computer science department.
13. which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
(a) academics respect only people who hold doctoral degrees.
(b) all of this university’s professors have obtained doctoral degrees.
(c) at this university, every professor who holds a do
ctoral degree in computer science really knows about computers.
(d) all academics who hold doctoral degrees are respected by their academic colleagues.
(e) among this university’s staff members with doctoral degrees, only those in the computer science department really know about computers.
14. which one of the following statements, if true, would weaken the argument?
(a) there are members of this university’s staff who hold doctoral degrees and who are not professors but who really know about computers.
(b) there are members of this university’s philosophy department who do not hold doctoral degrees but who really know about computers.
(c) computer science professors who hold doctoral degrees but who are not members of this university’s staff have applied for the position of dean of computing.
(d) several members of the board of trustees of this university do not hold doctoral degrees.
(e) some members of the computer science department at this university are not respected by academics in other departments.
questions 15-16
consumer advocate: under the current absence of government standards for food product labeling, manufacturers are misleading or deceiving consumers by their product labeling. for example, a certain brand of juice is labeled “fresh orange juice,” yet the product is made from water, concentrate, and flavor enhancers. since “fresh” as applied to food products is commonly understood to mean pure and unprocessed, labeling that orange juice “fresh” is unquestionably deceptive.
manufacturer: using words somewhat differently than they are commonly used is not deceptive. after all, “fresh” can also mean never frozen. we cannot be faulted for failing to comply with standards that have not been officially formulated. when the government sets clear standards pertaining to product labeling, we will certainly comply with them.
15. on the basis of their statements above, the consumer advocate and the manufacturer are committed to disagreeing about the truth of which one of the following statements?
(a) in the absence of government standards, common understanding is the arbiter of deceptive labeling practices.
(b) truthful labeling practices that reflect common standards of usage can be established by the government.
(c) the term “fresh” when it is applied to food products is commonly understood to mean pure and unprocessed.
(d) terms that apply to natural foods can be truthfully applied to packaged foods.
(e) clear government standards for labeling food products will ensure truthful labeling practices.
16. which one of the following principle, if established, would contribute most to a defense of the manufacturer’s position against that of the consumer advocate?
(a) in the absence of government definitions for terms used in product labeling, common standards of understanding alone should apply.
(b) government standards for truthful labeling should always be designed to reflect common standards of understanding.
(c) people should be free to the extent that it is legal to do so, to exploit to their advantages the inherent ambiguity and vagueness in language.
(d) when government standards and common standards for truthful labeling are incompatible with each other, the government standards should always take precedence.
(e) in their interpretation of language, consumers should never presume that vagueness indicates an attempt to deceive on the part of manufacturers unless those manufacturers would reap large benefits from successful deception.
17. certain items—those with that hard-to-define quality called exclusivity—have the odd property, when they become available for sale, of selling rapidly even though they are extremely expensive. in fact, trying to sell such an item fast by asking too low a price is a serious error, since it calls into question the very thing---exclusivity---that is supposed to be the item’s chief appeal. therefore, given that a price that will prove to be right is virtually impossible for the seller to gauge in advance, the seller should make sure that any error in the initial asking price is in the direction of setting the price too high.
the argument recommends a certain pricing strategy on the grounds that
(a) this strategy lacks a counterproductive feature of the rejected alternative
(b) this strategy has all of advantages of the rejected alternative, but fewer of its disadvantages
(c) experience has proven this strategy to be superior, even though the reasons for this superiority elude analysis
(d) this strategy does not rely on prospective buyers estimates of value
(e) the error associated with this strategy, unlike the error associated with the rejected alternative, is likely to go unnoticed
18. in order to control the deer populat
ion, a biologist has proposed injecting female deer during breeding season with 10 milligrams of a hormone that would suppress fertility. critics have charged that the proposal poses health risks to people who might eat the meat of treated deer and thereby ingest unsafe quantities of the hormone. the biologist has responded to these critics by pointing out that humans can ingest up to 10 milligrams of the hormone a day without any adverse effects, and since no one would eat even one entire deer a day, the treatment would be safe.
the biologist’s response to critics of the proposal is based on which one of the following assumptions?
(a) people would be notified of the time when deer in their area were to be treated with the hormone.
(b) the hormone that would be injected into the deer is chemically similar to hormones used in human contraceptives.
(c) hunting season for deer could be scheduled so that it would not coincide with breeding season.
(d) the hormone in question does not occur naturally in the female deer that would be injected.
(e) most people do not consider deer meat to be part of their daily diet and eat it only on rare occasions.
19. a recent survey conducted in one north american city revealed widespread concern about the problems faced by teenagers today. seventy percent of the adults surveyed said they would pay higher taxes for drug treatment programs, and 60 percent said they were willing to pay higher taxes to improve the city’s schools. yet in a vote in that same city, a proposition to increase funding for schools by raising taxes failed by a narrow margin to win majority approval.
which one of the following factors, if true, would least contribute to an explanation of the discrepancy described above?
(a) the survey sample was not representative of the voters who voted on the proposition.
(b) many of the people who were surveyed did not respond truthfully to all of the questions put to them.
(c) the proposition was only part of a more expensive community improvement program that voters had to accept or reject in total.
(d) a proposition for increasing funds for local drug treatment centers also failed to win approval.
(e) the proposition to raise taxes for schools was couched in terminology that many of the voters found confusing.
questions 20-21
so-called environmentalists have argued that the proposed golden lake development would interfere with bird-migration patterns. however, the fact that these same people have raised environmental objections to virtually every development proposal brought before the council in recent years indicates that their expressed concern for bird-migration patterns is nothing but a mask for their antidevelopment, antiprogress agenda. their claim, therefore, should be dismissed without further consideration.
20. which one of the following questionable argumentative techniques is employed in the passage?
(a) taking the failure of a given argument to establish its conclusion as the basis for claiming that the view expressed by that conclusion is false.
(b) rejecting the conclusion of an argument on the basis of a claim about the motives of those advancing the argument
(c) using a few exceptional cases as the basis for a claim about what is true in general
(d) misrepresenting evidence that supports the position the argument is intended to refute.
(e) assuming that what is true of a group as a whole is necessarily true of each member of that group
21. for the claim that the concern expressed by the so-called environmentalists is not their real concern to be properly drawn on the basis of the evidence cited, which one of the following must be assumed?
(a) not every development proposal opposed in recent years by these so-called environmentalists was opposed because they believed it to pose a threat to the environment
(b) people whose real agenda is to block development wherever it is proposed always try to disguise their true motives.
(c) anyone who opposes unrestricted development is an opponent of progress.
(d) the council has no reason to object to the proposed golden lake development other than concern about the development’s effect on bird-migration patterns.
(e) when people say that they oppose a development project solely on environmental grounds, their real concern almost always lies elsewhere.
22. psychologists today recognize childhood as a separate stage of life which can only be understood in its own terms, and they wonder why the western world took so long to see the folly of regarding children simply as small, inadequately socialized adults. most psychologists, however, persist in regarding people 70 to 90 years old as though they were 35 year olds who just happen to have white hair and extra leisure time. but old age is as fund
amentally different from young adulthood and middle age as childhood is---a fact attested to by the organization of modern social and economic life. surely it is time, therefore, to acknowledge that serious research into the unique psychology of advanced age has become indispensable.
which one of the following principles, if established, would provide the strongest backing for the argument?
(a) whenever current psychological practice conflicts with traditional attitudes toward people, those traditional attitudes should be changed to bring them in line with current psychological practice.
(b) whenever two groups of people are so related to each other that any member of the second group must previously have been a member of the first, people in the first group should not be regarded simply as deviant members of the second group.
(c) whenever most practitioners of a given discipline approach a particular problem in the same way, that uniformity is good evidence that all similar problems should also be approached in that way.
(d) whenever a society’s economic life is so organized that two distinct times of life are treated as being fundamentally different from one another, each time of life can be understood only in terms of its own distinct psychology.
(e) whenever psychologists agree that a single psychology is inadequate for two distinct age groups, they should be prepared to show that there are greater differences between the two age groups than there are between individuals in the same age group.
23. sabina: the words used in expressing facts affect neither the facts nor the conclusions those facts will support. moreover, if the words are clearly defined and consistently used, the actual words chosen make no difference to an argument’s soundness. thus, how an argument is expressed can have no bearing on whether it is a good argument.
emile: badly chosen words can make even the soundest argument a poor one. after all, many words have social and political connotations that influence people’s response to claims expressed in those words, regardless of how carefully and explicitly those words are defined. since whether people will acknowledge a fact is affected by how the fact is expressed, the conclusions they actually draw are also affected.
the point at issue between emile and sabina is whether
(a) defining words in one way rather than another can alter either the facts or the conclusions the facts will justify
(b) a word can be defined without taking into account its social and political connotations
(c) a sound argument in support of a given conclusion is a better argument than any unsound argument for that same conclusion
(d) it would be a good policy to avoid using words that are likely to lead people either to misunderstand the claims being made or to reason badly about those claims
(e) a factor that affects neither the truth of an argument’s premises nor the logical relation between its premises and its conclusion can cause an argument to be a bad one
24. most disposable plastic containers are now labeled with a code number (from 1 to 9) indicating the type or quality of the plastic. plastics with the lowest code numbers are the easiest for recycling plants to recycle and are thus the most likely to be recycles after use rather than dumped in landfills. plastics labeled with the highest numbers are only rarely recycled.
consumers can make a significant long-term reduction in the amount of waste that goes unrecycled, therefore, by refusing to purchase those products packaged in plastic containers labeled with the highest code numbers.
which one of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion above?
(a) the cost of collecting, sorting, and recycling discarded plastics is currently higher than the cost of manufacturing new plastics from virgin materials.
(b) many consumers are unaware of the codes that are stamped on the plastic containers.
(c) a plastic container almost always has a higher code number after it is recycled than it had before recycling because the recycling process causes a degradation of the quality of the plastic.
(d) products packaged in plastics with the lowest code numbers are often more expensive than those packaged in the higher-numbered plastics.
(e) communities that collect all discarded plastic containers for potential recycling later dump in landfills plastics with higher-numbered codes only when it is clear that no recycler will take them.
25. despite a steady decrease in the average number of hours worked per person per week, the share of the population that reads a daily newspaper has declined greatly in the past 20 years. but the percentage of the population that watches television daily has shown a similarly dramatic increase over the same period. clearly, increased televis
ion viewing has caused a simultaneous decline in newspaper reading.
which one of the following, if true, would be most damaging to the explanation given above for the decline in newspaper reading?
(a) there has been a dramatic increase over the past 20 years in the percentage of people who tell polltakers that television is their primary source of information about current events.
(b) of those members of the population who do not watch television, the percentage who read a newspaper every day has also shown a dramatic decrease.
(c) the time people spend with the books and newspapers they read has increased, on average, from 1 to 3 hours per week in the past 20 years.
(d) people who spend large amounts of time each day watching television are less able to process and remember printed information than are those who do not watch television.
(e) a typical television set is on 6 hours a day down from an average of 6 1/2 hours a day 5 years ago.
time—35 minutes
25 questions
directions: the questions in this section are based on the reasoning contained in brief statements or passages. for some questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. however, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question. you should not make assumptions that are by commonsense standards implausible, superfluous, or incompatible with the passage. after you have chosen the best answer, blacken the corresponding space on your answer sheet.
1. the cafeteria at acme company can offer only four main dishes at lunchtime, and the same four choices have been offered for years. recently mushroom casserole was offered in place of one of the other main dishes for two days, during which more people chose mushroom casserole than any other main dish. clearly, if the cafeteria wants to please its customers, mushroom casserole should replace one of the regular dishes as a permanent part of the menu.
the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it fails to consider
(a) the proportion of acme company employees who regularly eat lunch in the company cafeteria
(b) whether any of the ingredients used in the cafeteria’s recipe for mushroom casserole are included in any of the regular main dishes
(c) a desire for variety as a reason for people’s choice of mushroom casserole during the days it was offered
(d) what foods other than main dishes are regularly offered at lunchtime by the cafeteria
(e) whether other meals besides lunch are served in the acme company cafeteria
2. when old-grow forests are cleared of tall trees, more sunlight reaches the forest floor. this results in a sharp increase in the population of leafy shrubs on which the mule deer depend for food. yet mule deer herds that inhabit cleared forests are less well-nourished than are herds living in old-growth forests.
which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent paradox?
(a) mule deer have enzyme-rich saliva and specialized digestive organs that enable the deer to digest tough plants inedible to other deer species.
(b) mule deer herds that inhabit cleared forests tend to have more female with young offspring and fewer adult males than do other mule deer populations.
(c) mule deer populations are spread throughout western north america and inhabit hot, sunny climates as well as cool, we climates.
(d) as plants receive more sunlight, they produce higher amounts of tannins, compounds that inhibit digestion of the plants’ proteins.
(e) insect parasites, such as certain species of ticks, that feed primary on mule deer often dwell in trees, from which they drop onto passing deer.
3. genevieve: increasing costs have led commercial airlines to cut back on airplane maintenance. also, reductions in public spending have led to air traffic control centers being underfunded and understaffed. for these and other reasons it is becoming quite unsafe to fly, and so one should avoid doing it.
harold: your reasoning may be sound, but i can hardly accept your conclusion when you yourself have recently been flying on commercial airlines even more than before.
which one of the following relies on a questionable technique most similar to that used in harold’s reply to genevieve?
(a) david says that the new film is not very good, but he has not seen it himself, so i don’t accept his opinion.
(b) a long time ago maria showed me a great way to cook lamb, but for medical reasons she no longer eats red meat, so i’ll cook something else for dinner tonight.
(c) susan has been trying to persuade me to go rock climbing with her, claiming that it’s quite safe, but last week she fell and broke her collarbone, so i don’t believe her.
(d) pat has shown me research that proves that eating raw green vegetables is very beneficial and that ones should eat them daily, but i don’t believe it, since she hardly ever eats raw green vegetables.
(e) gabriel has all the qualifications we have specified for the job and has much relevant work experience, but i don’t believe we should hire him, because when he worked in a similar position before his performance was mediocre.
4. all people residing in the country of gradara approve of legislation requiring that certain hazardous waste be disposed of by being burned in modern high-temperature incinerators. however, waste disposal companies planning to build such incinerators encounter fierce resistance to their applications for building permits from the residents of every gradaran community that those companies propose as an incinerator site.
which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the residents’ simultaneously hol
ding both of the positions ascribe them?
(a) high-temperature incineration minimizes the overall risk to the human population of he country from the wastes being disposed of but it concentrates the remaining risk in a small number of incineration sites.
(b) high-temperature incineration is more expensive than any of the available alternatives would be and the higher costs would be recovered through higher product prices.
(c) high-temperature incineration will be carried out by private companies rather than by a government agency so that the government will not be requited to police itself.
(d) the toxin fumes generated within a high-temperature incinerator can be further treated so that all toxic residues from a properly operating incinerator are solids.
(e) the substantial cost of high-temperature incineration can be partially offset by revenue from sales of electric energy generated as a by-product of incineration.
5.elena: while i was at the dog show, every dog that growled at me was a white poodle, and every white poodle i saw growled at me.
which one of the following can be properly inferred from elena’s statement?
(a) the only white dogs that elena saw at the dog show were poodles.
(b) there were no gray poodles at the dog show.
(c) at the dog show, no gray dogs growled at elena.
(d) all the white dogs that elena saw growled at her.
(e) elena did not see any gray poodles at the dog show.
questions 6-7
derek: we must exploit available resources in developing effective anticancer drugs such as the one made from mature pacific yew trees. although the yew population might be threatened, the trees should be harvested now, since an effective synthetic version of the yew’s anticancer chemical could take years to develop.
lola: not only are mature yews very rare, but most are located in areas where logging is prohibited to protect the habitat of the endangered spotted owl. despite our eagerness to take advantage of a new medical breakthrough, we should wait for a synthetic drug rather than threaten the survival of both the yew and the owl, which could have far-reaching consequences for an entire ecosystem.
6. which one of the following is the main point at issue between lola and derek?
(a) whether the harvesting of available pacific yews would have far-reaching environmental repercussions
(b) whether the drugs that are effective against potentially deadly diseases should be based on synthetic rather than naturally occurring chemicals
(c) whether it is justifiable to wait until a synthetic drug can be developed when the capacity for producing the yew-derived drug already exists
(d) the extent of the environmental disaster that would result if both the pacific yew and the spotted owl were to become extinct
(e) whether environmental considerations should ever have any weight when human lives are at stake
7. lola’s position most closely conforms to which one of the following principles?
(a) unless people’s well-being is threatened, there should be no higher priority than preserving endangered plant and animal populations.
(b) medical researchers should work with environmentalists to come to an agreement about the fate of the pacific yew and the spotted owl.
(c) environmental concerns should play a role in decisions concerning medical research only if human lives are not at stake.
(d) only medical breakthroughs that could save human lives would justify threatening the environment.
(e) avoiding actions that threaten an enure ecosystem takes precedence over immediately providing advantage to a restricted group of people.
8. the director of a secondary school where many students were having severe academic problems impaneled a committee to study the matter. the committee reported that these students were having academic problems because they spent large amounts of time on school sports and too little time studying. the director then prohibited all students who were having academic problems from taking part in sports in which they were active. he stated that this would ensure that such students would do well academically.
the reasoning on which the director bases his statement is not sound because he fails to establish that
(a) some students who spend time on sports do not have academic problems
(b) all students who do well academically do so because of time saved by not participating in sports
(c) at least some of the time the students will save by not participating in sports will be spent on solving their academic problems
(d) no students who do well academically spend time on sports
(e) the quality of the school’s sports program would not suffer as a result of the ban
（原文如此）
9. it can safely be concluded that there are at least as m
any trees in seclee as there are in martown.
from which one of the following does the conclusion logically follow?
(a) more trees were planted in seclee in the past two years than in martown.
(b) seclee is the region within which martown is located.
(c) martown is suffering from an epidemic of tree-virus infection.
(d) the average annual rainfall for seclee is greater than the average annual rainfall for martown.
(e) the average number of trees cut down annually in martown is higher than in seclee.
questions 10-11
a distemper virus has caused two-thirds of the seal population in the north sea to die since may 1988. the explanation for the deaths cannot rest here, however. there must be a reason the normally latent virus could prevail so suddenly: clearly the severe pollution of the north sea waters must have weakened the immune system of the seals so that they could no longer withstand the virus.
10. the argument concerning the immune system of the seals presupposes which one of the following?
(a) there has been a gradual decline in the seal population of the north sea during the past two centuries.
(b) no further sources of pollution have been added since may 1988 to the already existing sources of pollution in the north sea.
(c) there was no sudden mutation in the distemper virus which would have allowed the virus successfully to attack healthy north sea seals by may 1988.
(d) pollution in the north sea is no greater than pollution in the mediterranean sea, off the coast of north america, or in the sea of japan.
(e) some species that provide food for the seals have nearly become extinct as a result of the pollution.
11. which one of the following, if true, most strongly supports the explanation given in the argument?
(a) at various times during the last ten years, several species of shellfish and seabirds in the north sea have experienced unprecedented steep drops in population.
(b) by reducing pollution at its source, northern europe and scandinavia have been taking the lead in preventing pollution from reaching the waters of the north sea.
(c) for many years, fish for human consumption have been taken from the waters of the north sea.
(d) there are two species of seal found throughout the north sea area, the common seal and the gray seal.
(e) the distemper caused by the virus was a disease that was new to the population of north sea seals in may 1988, and so the seals’ immune systems were unprepared to counter it.
12. it is clear that none of the volleyball players at yesterday’s office beach party came to work today since everyone who played volleyball at that party got badly sunburned and no one at work today is even slightly sunburned.
which one of the following exhibits a pattern of reasoning that most closely parallels that in the argument above?
(a) since everyone employed by trf who was given the opportunity to purchase dental insurance did so and everyone who purchased dental insurance saw a dentist, it is clear that no one who failed to see a dentist is employed by trf.
(b) since no one who was promoted during the past year failed to attend the awards banquet, evidently none of the office managers attended the banquet this year since they were all denied promotion.
(c) since the donnely report was not finished on time, no one in john’s group could have been assigned to contribute to that report since everyone in john’s group has a reputation for getting assignments in on time.
(d) everyone with an office on the second floor works directly for the president and, as a result, no one with a second floor office will take a july vacation because no one who works for the president will be able to take time off during july.
(e) since all of the people who are now on the mxm corporation payroll have been employed in the same job for the past five years, it is clear that no one who frequently changes jobs is likely to be hired by mxm.
questions 13-14
the dean of computing must be respected by the academic staff and be competent to oversee the use of computers on campus. the only deans whom academics respect are those who hold doctoral degrees, and only someone who really knows about computers can competently oversee the use of computers on campus.
furthermore, the board of trustees has decided that the dean of computing must be selected from among this university’s staff. therefore, the dean of computing must be a professor from this university’s computer science department.
13. which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
(a) academics respect only people who hold doctoral degrees.
(b) all of this university’s professors have obtained doctoral degrees.
(c) at this university, every professor who holds a do
ctoral degree in computer science really knows about computers.
(d) all academics who hold doctoral degrees are respected by their academic colleagues.
(e) among this university’s staff members with doctoral degrees, only those in the computer science department really know about computers.
14. which one of the following statements, if true, would weaken the argument?
(a) there are members of this university’s staff who hold doctoral degrees and who are not professors but who really know about computers.
(b) there are members of this university’s philosophy department who do not hold doctoral degrees but who really know about computers.
(c) computer science professors who hold doctoral degrees but who are not members of this university’s staff have applied for the position of dean of computing.
(d) several members of the board of trustees of this university do not hold doctoral degrees.
(e) some members of the computer science department at this university are not respected by academics in other departments.
questions 15-16
consumer advocate: under the current absence of government standards for food product labeling, manufacturers are misleading or deceiving consumers by their product labeling. for example, a certain brand of juice is labeled “fresh orange juice,” yet the product is made from water, concentrate, and flavor enhancers. since “fresh” as applied to food products is commonly understood to mean pure and unprocessed, labeling that orange juice “fresh” is unquestionably deceptive.
manufacturer: using words somewhat differently than they are commonly used is not deceptive. after all, “fresh” can also mean never frozen. we cannot be faulted for failing to comply with standards that have not been officially formulated. when the government sets clear standards pertaining to product labeling, we will certainly comply with them.
15. on the basis of their statements above, the consumer advocate and the manufacturer are committed to disagreeing about the truth of which one of the following statements?
(a) in the absence of government standards, common understanding is the arbiter of deceptive labeling practices.
(b) truthful labeling practices that reflect common standards of usage can be established by the government.
(c) the term “fresh” when it is applied to food products is commonly understood to mean pure and unprocessed.
(d) terms that apply to natural foods can be truthfully applied to packaged foods.
(e) clear government standards for labeling food products will ensure truthful labeling practices.
16. which one of the following principle, if established, would contribute most to a defense of the manufacturer’s position against that of the consumer advocate?
(a) in the absence of government definitions for terms used in product labeling, common standards of understanding alone should apply.
(b) government standards for truthful labeling should always be designed to reflect common standards of understanding.
(c) people should be free to the extent that it is legal to do so, to exploit to their advantages the inherent ambiguity and vagueness in language.
(d) when government standards and common standards for truthful labeling are incompatible with each other, the government standards should always take precedence.
(e) in their interpretation of language, consumers should never presume that vagueness indicates an attempt to deceive on the part of manufacturers unless those manufacturers would reap large benefits from successful deception.
17. certain items—those with that hard-to-define quality called exclusivity—have the odd property, when they become available for sale, of selling rapidly even though they are extremely expensive. in fact, trying to sell such an item fast by asking too low a price is a serious error, since it calls into question the very thing---exclusivity---that is supposed to be the item’s chief appeal. therefore, given that a price that will prove to be right is virtually impossible for the seller to gauge in advance, the seller should make sure that any error in the initial asking price is in the direction of setting the price too high.
the argument recommends a certain pricing strategy on the grounds that
(a) this strategy lacks a counterproductive feature of the rejected alternative
(b) this strategy has all of advantages of the rejected alternative, but fewer of its disadvantages
(c) experience has proven this strategy to be superior, even though the reasons for this superiority elude analysis
(d) this strategy does not rely on prospective buyers estimates of value
(e) the error associated with this strategy, unlike the error associated with the rejected alternative, is likely to go unnoticed
18. in order to control the deer populat
ion, a biologist has proposed injecting female deer during breeding season with 10 milligrams of a hormone that would suppress fertility. critics have charged that the proposal poses health risks to people who might eat the meat of treated deer and thereby ingest unsafe quantities of the hormone. the biologist has responded to these critics by pointing out that humans can ingest up to 10 milligrams of the hormone a day without any adverse effects, and since no one would eat even one entire deer a day, the treatment would be safe.
the biologist’s response to critics of the proposal is based on which one of the following assumptions?
(a) people would be notified of the time when deer in their area were to be treated with the hormone.
(b) the hormone that would be injected into the deer is chemically similar to hormones used in human contraceptives.
(c) hunting season for deer could be scheduled so that it would not coincide with breeding season.
(d) the hormone in question does not occur naturally in the female deer that would be injected.
(e) most people do not consider deer meat to be part of their daily diet and eat it only on rare occasions.
19. a recent survey conducted in one north american city revealed widespread concern about the problems faced by teenagers today. seventy percent of the adults surveyed said they would pay higher taxes for drug treatment programs, and 60 percent said they were willing to pay higher taxes to improve the city’s schools. yet in a vote in that same city, a proposition to increase funding for schools by raising taxes failed by a narrow margin to win majority approval.
which one of the following factors, if true, would least contribute to an explanation of the discrepancy described above?
(a) the survey sample was not representative of the voters who voted on the proposition.
(b) many of the people who were surveyed did not respond truthfully to all of the questions put to them.
(c) the proposition was only part of a more expensive community improvement program that voters had to accept or reject in total.
(d) a proposition for increasing funds for local drug treatment centers also failed to win approval.
(e) the proposition to raise taxes for schools was couched in terminology that many of the voters found confusing.
questions 20-21
so-called environmentalists have argued that the proposed golden lake development would interfere with bird-migration patterns. however, the fact that these same people have raised environmental objections to virtually every development proposal brought before the council in recent years indicates that their expressed concern for bird-migration patterns is nothing but a mask for their antidevelopment, antiprogress agenda. their claim, therefore, should be dismissed without further consideration.
20. which one of the following questionable argumentative techniques is employed in the passage?
(a) taking the failure of a given argument to establish its conclusion as the basis for claiming that the view expressed by that conclusion is false.
(b) rejecting the conclusion of an argument on the basis of a claim about the motives of those advancing the argument
(c) using a few exceptional cases as the basis for a claim about what is true in general
(d) misrepresenting evidence that supports the position the argument is intended to refute.
(e) assuming that what is true of a group as a whole is necessarily true of each member of that group
21. for the claim that the concern expressed by the so-called environmentalists is not their real concern to be properly drawn on the basis of the evidence cited, which one of the following must be assumed?
(a) not every development proposal opposed in recent years by these so-called environmentalists was opposed because they believed it to pose a threat to the environment
(b) people whose real agenda is to block development wherever it is proposed always try to disguise their true motives.
(c) anyone who opposes unrestricted development is an opponent of progress.
(d) the council has no reason to object to the proposed golden lake development other than concern about the development’s effect on bird-migration patterns.
(e) when people say that they oppose a development project solely on environmental grounds, their real concern almost always lies elsewhere.
22. psychologists today recognize childhood as a separate stage of life which can only be understood in its own terms, and they wonder why the western world took so long to see the folly of regarding children simply as small, inadequately socialized adults. most psychologists, however, persist in regarding people 70 to 90 years old as though they were 35 year olds who just happen to have white hair and extra leisure time. but old age is as fund
amentally different from young adulthood and middle age as childhood is---a fact attested to by the organization of modern social and economic life. surely it is time, therefore, to acknowledge that serious research into the unique psychology of advanced age has become indispensable.
which one of the following principles, if established, would provide the strongest backing for the argument?
(a) whenever current psychological practice conflicts with traditional attitudes toward people, those traditional attitudes should be changed to bring them in line with current psychological practice.
(b) whenever two groups of people are so related to each other that any member of the second group must previously have been a member of the first, people in the first group should not be regarded simply as deviant members of the second group.
(c) whenever most practitioners of a given discipline approach a particular problem in the same way, that uniformity is good evidence that all similar problems should also be approached in that way.
(d) whenever a society’s economic life is so organized that two distinct times of life are treated as being fundamentally different from one another, each time of life can be understood only in terms of its own distinct psychology.
(e) whenever psychologists agree that a single psychology is inadequate for two distinct age groups, they should be prepared to show that there are greater differences between the two age groups than there are between individuals in the same age group.
23. sabina: the words used in expressing facts affect neither the facts nor the conclusions those facts will support. moreover, if the words are clearly defined and consistently used, the actual words chosen make no difference to an argument’s soundness. thus, how an argument is expressed can have no bearing on whether it is a good argument.
emile: badly chosen words can make even the soundest argument a poor one. after all, many words have social and political connotations that influence people’s response to claims expressed in those words, regardless of how carefully and explicitly those words are defined. since whether people will acknowledge a fact is affected by how the fact is expressed, the conclusions they actually draw are also affected.
the point at issue between emile and sabina is whether
(a) defining words in one way rather than another can alter either the facts or the conclusions the facts will justify
(b) a word can be defined without taking into account its social and political connotations
(c) a sound argument in support of a given conclusion is a better argument than any unsound argument for that same conclusion
(d) it would be a good policy to avoid using words that are likely to lead people either to misunderstand the claims being made or to reason badly about those claims
(e) a factor that affects neither the truth of an argument’s premises nor the logical relation between its premises and its conclusion can cause an argument to be a bad one
24. most disposable plastic containers are now labeled with a code number (from 1 to 9) indicating the type or quality of the plastic. plastics with the lowest code numbers are the easiest for recycling plants to recycle and are thus the most likely to be recycles after use rather than dumped in landfills. plastics labeled with the highest numbers are only rarely recycled.
consumers can make a significant long-term reduction in the amount of waste that goes unrecycled, therefore, by refusing to purchase those products packaged in plastic containers labeled with the highest code numbers.
which one of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion above?
(a) the cost of collecting, sorting, and recycling discarded plastics is currently higher than the cost of manufacturing new plastics from virgin materials.
(b) many consumers are unaware of the codes that are stamped on the plastic containers.
(c) a plastic container almost always has a higher code number after it is recycled than it had before recycling because the recycling process causes a degradation of the quality of the plastic.
(d) products packaged in plastics with the lowest code numbers are often more expensive than those packaged in the higher-numbered plastics.
(e) communities that collect all discarded plastic containers for potential recycling later dump in landfills plastics with higher-numbered codes only when it is clear that no recycler will take them.
25. despite a steady decrease in the average number of hours worked per person per week, the share of the population that reads a daily newspaper has declined greatly in the past 20 years. but the percentage of the population that watches television daily has shown a similarly dramatic increase over the same period. clearly, increased televis
ion viewing has caused a simultaneous decline in newspaper reading.
which one of the following, if true, would be most damaging to the explanation given above for the decline in newspaper reading?
(a) there has been a dramatic increase over the past 20 years in the percentage of people who tell polltakers that television is their primary source of information about current events.
(b) of those members of the population who do not watch television, the percentage who read a newspaper every day has also shown a dramatic decrease.
(c) the time people spend with the books and newspapers they read has increased, on average, from 1 to 3 hours per week in the past 20 years.
(d) people who spend large amounts of time each day watching television are less able to process and remember printed information than are those who do not watch television.
(e) a typical television set is on 6 hours a day down from an average of 6 1/2 hours a day 5 years ago.
[7]