TEST11 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.
questions 1-2
a physician who is too through in conducting a medical checkup is likely to subject the patient to the discomfort and expense of unnecessary tests. one who is not thorough enough is likely to miss some serious problem and therefore give the patient a false sense of security. it is difficult for physicians to judge exactly how thorough they should be. therefore, it is generally unwise for patients to have medical checkups when they do not feel ill.
1. which one of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument in the passage?
(a) some serious diseases in their early stages have symptoms that physicians can readily detect.
(b) under the pressure of reduced reimbursements, physicians have been reducing the average amount of time they spend on each medical checkup.
(c) patients not medically trained are unable to judge foe themselves what degree of thoroughness is appropriate for physicians in conducting medical checkups.
(d) many people are financially unable to afford regular medical checkups.
(e) some physicians sometimes exercise exactly the right degree of thoroughness in performing a medical checkup.
2. which one of the following, if true, would provide the most support for the conclusion in the passage?
(a) not all medical tests entail significant discomfort.
(b) sometimes unnecessary medical tests cause healthy people to become ill.
(c) some patients refuse to accept a physician’s assurance that the patient is healthy.
(d) the more complete the series of tests performed in a medical checkup, the more likely it is that a rare disease, if present, will be discovered.
(e) physicians can eliminate the need to order certain tests by carefully questioning patients and rejecting some possibilities on that basis.
3. people often pronounce a word differently when asked to read written material aloud than when speaking spontaneously. these differences may cause problems for those who develop computers that recognize speech. usually the developers “train” the computers by using samples of written material read by the people who will be using the compute.
the observations above provide most evidence foe the conclusion that
(a) it will be impossible to develop computers that decode spontaneous speech.
(b) when reading written material, people who have different accents pronounce the same word in the same way as one another.
(c) computers may be less reliable in decoding spontaneous speech than in decoding samples that have been read aloud.
(d) a “trained” computer never correctly decodes the spontaneous speech of a person whose voice sample was used to train it.
(e) computers are now able to interpret oral speech without error.
4. one of the requirements for admission to the lunnville roller skating club is a high degree of skill in roller skating. the club president has expressed concern that the club may have discriminated against qualified women in its admissions this year. yet half of the applicants admitted to the club this year were women. this proves that there was no discrimination against qualified women applicants in the club’s admissions this year.
which one of the following is an assumption on which the conclusion of the argument depends?
(a) only a few applicants were found to be qualified and were admitted to the club this year.
(b) no more than half of all the roller skaters in lunnville are women.
(c) no more than half of all the roller skaters in lunnville are men.
(d) this year no more than half of the applicants who met all the qualifications for admission to the club were women.
(e) this year no more than half of the members of the club’s committee that makes decisions about applicants’ qualifications were men.
5. when girls are educated in single-sex secondary schools, they tend to do better academically than girls who attend mixed-sex schools. since alice achieved higher grades than any other woman in her first year at the university, she was probably educated at a single-sex school.
which one of the following most closely parallels the flawed reasoning used in the argument above?
(a)
when students have individual tutoring in math, they usually get good grades on their final exams. celia had individual tutoring in math so she will probably get a good grade.
(b) when babies are taught to swim, they have more than the average number of ear infections as they grow up. janice has more ear infections than any other person at the local swimming club, so she probably was taught to swim when she was a baby.
(c) when children study music at an early age, they later tend to appreciate a wide variety of music, so the talent of future musicians is best fostered at an early age.
(d) when children practice their piano scales for half an hour each day, they usually pass their piano exams. sally practices scales for less than half an hour each day, so she will probably fail her piano exam.
(e) when children have parents who help them with their homework, they usually do well in school. therefore, having help with homework is probably the cause of high academic achievement.
6. in the past century, north america has shifted its main energy source first from wood to coal, then from coal to oil and natural gas. with each transition, the newly dominant fuel has had less carbon and more hydrogen than its predecessor had. it is logical to conclude that in the future the main energy source will be pure hydrogen.
which one of the following expresses a general principle that could underlie the argument?
(a) if series of transitions from one state of a system to another state of that system is allowed to continue without interference, the initial state of the series will eventually recur.
(b) if each of two desirable attributes belongs to a useful substance, then the most useful form of that substance will have those two attributes in equal amounts.
(c) if the second stage of a process has been completed more quickly than the first stage, the third stage of that process will be completed more quickly than the second stage.
(d) if each step in a series of changes involves a decrease of one attribute of the thing undergoing the change and an increase of another, the series will terminate with the first attribute eliminated and only the second attribute present.
(e) if one substance is better for a certain purpose than another substance is, then the best substance for that purpose is one that includes among its attributes all of the attributes of the first substance and none of the attributes of the second substance.
question7-8
x: since many chemicals useful for agriculture and medicine derive from rare or endangered plant species, it is likely that many plant species that are now extinct could have provide us with substances that would have been a boon to humanity. therefore, if we want to ensure that chemicals from plants are available for use in the future, we must make more serious efforts to preserve for all time our natural resource.
y: but living things are not our “resources.” yours is a selfish approach to conservation. we should rather strive to preserve living species because they deserve to survive, not because of the good they can do us.
7. which one of the following is an issue about which x and y disagree?
(a) whether the benefits humans derive from exploring non-human species provides a good reason for preserving non-human species.
(b) whether the cost of preserving plant species outweighs that could otherwise be derived from those species.
(c) whether it is prudent to conserve natural resources
(d) whether humans should make efforts to prevent the extinction of living species.
(e) whether all non-human species are equally valuable as natural resources.
8. x’s argument relies on which one of the following assumptions?
(a) medicine would now be more advanced than it is if there had been a serious conservation policy in the past.
(b) all living things exist to serve humankind.
(c) the use of rare and endangered plant species as a source for chemicals will not itself render those species extinct.
(d) the only way to persuade people to preserve natural resources is to convince them that it is in their interest to do so.
(e) few, if any, plant species have been saved from extinction through human efforts.
9. there is relatively little room for growth in the overall carpet market, which is tied to the size of the population. most who purchase carpet do so only once or twice, first in their fifties or sixties. thus as the population ages, companies producing carpet will be able to gain market share competitors, and not through more aggressive marketing.
which one of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the conclusion above?
(a) most of the major carpet producers market other floor coverings as well.
(b) most established carpet producers market several differen
t brand names and varieties, and there is no remaining niche in the market for new brands to fill.
(c) two of the three mergers in the industry’s last ten years led to a decline in profits and revenues for the newly merged companies.
(d) price reductions, achieved by cost-cutting in production, by some of the dominant firms in the carpet market are causing other producers to leave the market altogether.
(e) the carpet market is unlike most markets in that consumers are becoming increasingly resistant to new patterns and styles.
10. decision makers tend to have distinctive styles. one such style is for the decision maker to seek the widest possible input from advisers and to explore alternatives while making up his or her mind. in fact, decision makers of this sort will often argue vigorously for a particular idea, emphasizing its strong points and downplaying its weaknesses, not because they actually believe in the idea but because they want to see if their real reservations about it are idiosyncratic or are held independently by their advisers.
which one of the following is most strongly supported by the statement above?
(a) if certain decision makers’ statements are quoted accurately and at length; the content of the quote could nonetheless be greatly at variance with the decision eventually make.
(b) certain decision makers do not know which ideas they do not really believe in until after they have presented a variety of ideas to their advisers
(c) if certain decision makers dismiss an idea out of hand, it must be because its weaknesses are more pronounced than any strong points it may have.
(d) certain decision makers proceed in a way that makes it likely that they will frequently decide in favor of ideas in which they do not believe.
(e) if certain decision makers’ advisers know the actual beliefs of those they advise, those advisers will give better advice than they would if they did not know those beliefs.
questions 11-12
the foreign minister of zeria announced today that her country was severing diplomatic relations with nandalo because of nandalo’s flagrant violations of human rights. but zeria continues to maintain diplomatic relations with many countries that the minister knows to have far worse human-rights records than nandalo does. therefore, despite the foreign minister’s claim, this latest diplomatic move cannot be explained exclusively by zeria’s commitment to upholding human rights.
11. which one of the following, if true, provides the most support for the argument in the passage?
(a) the country that currently buys most of zeria’s exports recently suggested that it might severely restrict its imports from zeria unless zeria broke off diplomatic relations with nanalo.
(b) two weeks after the zerian minister’s announcement, several other countries cited human-rights violations as a reason for severing diplomatic relations with nandalo
(c) more countries have expressed concern over reported human-rights violations in nandalo than have expressed concern over human-rights violations in zeria.
(d) nandalo has considered accusing zeria of violating the human rights of nandalo citizens living in zeria.
(e) the opposition party in zeria has long advocated severing trade relations with countries that systematically violate human rights but has opposed severing diplomatic relations.
12. the argumentative structure of which one of the following most closely parallels that of the argument in the passage?
(a) henry’s parents insist that he eat breakfast before leaving for school because not doing so would be bad for his health. but his parents themselves almost never eat breakfast, so their insistence cannot be completely explained by their concern for his health.
(b) professor walsh says that only typed term papers will be accepted because most handwriting is difficult to read. but since she lectures from handwritten notes, her policy cannot be exclusively explained by any difficulty she has with handwritten maternal.
(c) james claims that he stole only because he was hungry. but although hunger could account for stealing if food could not be readily obtained in any other way, in this case food was otherwise readily available, and so james theft cannot be completely explained by his hunger.
(d) armand declined helen’s invitation to dinner on the grounds that socializing with coworkers is imprudent. but since armand went to a movie with another coworker, maria, that same evening, his expressed concern for prudence cannot fully explain his refusal.
(e) it is often asserted that there are fewer good teachers than there used to be because teachers’ salaries have reached a new low. but teachers have always been poorly paid; so low salaries cannot fully explain this perceived decline in the effectiveness of teachers.
13. few politicians will support legislation that conflicts with their own self-interest. a case in point is august frenson, who throughout his eight terms in office consistently opposed measures limiting the advantage incumbents enjoy over their challengers. therefore, if such measures are to be enacted, they must result from direct popular vote rather from legislative action.
the case of august frenson plays which one of the following roles in the argument?
(a) it provides evidence, the falsity of which would guarantee the falsity of the author’s conclusion.
(b) it is cited as an example illustrating the generalization that is invoked.
(c) it gives essential background information concerning a measure being advocated.
(d) it demonstrates the extent to which incumbents have the advantage over challengers.
(e) it gives an example of the limits of direct popular vote.
14. in a learning experiment a researcher ran rats through a maze. some of the rats were blind, others deaf, others lacked a sense of smell, and others had no sensory deficiencies: yet all the rats learned the task in much the same amount of time. of the senses other than sight, hearing, and smell, only kinesthesia had not previously been shown to be irrelevant to maze-learning. the researcher concluded on the basis of these facts that kinesthesia, the sensation of bodily movement, is sufficient for maze-learning.
the researcher’s reasoning is most vulnerable to which one of the following criticisms?
(a) the small differences in proficiency found by the researcher did not appear to fall into a systematic pattern by group.
(b) the possibility that the interaction of kinesthesia with at least one other sense is required for maze-learning cannot be ruled out on the basis of the data above.
(c) it can be determined from the data that rats who are deprived of one of their sources of sensory stimulation become more reliant on kinesthesia than they had been, but the data do not indicate how such a transference takes place.
(d) it can be determined from the data that rats can learn to run mazes by depending on kinesthesia alone, but the possibility that rats respond to non-kinesthetic stimulation is not ruled out.
(e) it can be determined from the data that maze-learning in rats depends on at least two sources of sensory stimulation, one of which is kinesthesia, but which of the remaining sources must also be employed is not determinable.
15. new legislation would require a seven-day waiting period in the sale of handguns to private individuals, in order that records of prisons could be checked and the sale of handguns to people likely to hurt other people thereby prevented. people opposed to this legislation claim that prison records are so full of errors that the proposed law would prevent as many law-abiding citizens as criminals from having access to handguns.
if the claim made by people opposed to the new legislation is true, which one of the following is a principle that, if established, would do the most to justify opposition to the new legislation on the basis of that claim?
(a) the rights of law-abiding citizens are more worthy of protection than are the rights of criminals.
(b) nothing should be done to restrict potential criminals at the cost of placing restrictions on law-abiding citizens.
(c) legislation should not be enacted if no benefit could accrue to society as a result of that legislation.
(d) no restrictions should be placed on the sale of merchandise unless sale of that merchandise could endanger innocent people.
(e) even citizens who are neither fugitives nor felons should not be permitted to own a handgun unless they have received adequate training.
questions 16-17
the gulches is an area of volcanic rock that is gashed by many channels that lead downhill from the site of a prehistoric glacier to a river. the channels clearly were cut by running water. it was once accepted as fact that the cutting occurred gradually, as the glacier melted. but one geologist theorized that the channels were cut in a short time by an enormous flood. the channels do show physical evidence of having been formed quickly, but the flood theory was originally rejected because scientists knew of no natural process that could melt so much ice so quickly. paradoxically, today the scientific community accepts the flood theory even though scientists still do not know of a process that can melt so much ice so quickly.
16. which one of the following is supported by the information in the passage?
(a) only running water can cause deep channels in volcanic rock.
(b) the river did not exist before the channels were cut.
(c) geologists cannot determine the amount of heat required to melt a glacier quickly.
(d) the physical effects of water on rock
vary with the speed with which those effects are produced.
(e) geologists are compelled to reject physical evidence when it leads to an unexplainable conclusion.
17. which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent paradox in the passage?
(a) rippies, which indicate that the channels were cut by water, have been discovered in the floors of the channels.
(b) the guiches is known to be similar in certain respects to many other volcanic rock formations.
(c) more than one glacier was present in the area during prehistoric times.
(d) volcanic rock is more easily cut by water than are other forms of rock.
(e) scientists now believe that the prehistoric glacier dammed a source of water, created a huge lake in the process, and then retreated.
18. advertisement: attention pond owners! ninety-eight percent of mosquito larvae in a pond die within minutes after the pond has been treated with bti. yet bti is not toxic to fish, birds, animals, plants, or beneficial insects. so by using bti regularly to destroy their larvae, you can greatly reduce populations of pesky mosquitoes that hatch in your pond, and you can do so without diminishing the populations of fish, frogs, or beneficial insects in and around the pond.
which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
(a) the most effective way to control the numbers of mosquitoes in a given area is to destroy the mosquito larvae in that area.
(b) populations of mosquitoes are not dependent on a single body of water within an area as a place foe their larvae to hatch and develop
(c) there are no insect pests besides mosquitoes that pond owners might want to eliminate from in and around their pond.
(d) the effectiveness of bti in destroying mosquito larvae in a pond does not require the pond owner’s strict adherence to specific application procedures.
(e) the fish, frogs, and beneficial insects in and around a pond-owner’s pond do not depend on mosquito larvae as an important source of food.
19 many people change their wills on their own every few years, in response to significant changes in their personal or financial circumstances. this practice can create a problem foe the executor when these people are careless and do not date their wills: the executor will then often know neither which one of several undated wills is the most recent, nor whether the will drawn up last has ever been found. therefore, people should not only date their wills but also state in any new will which will it supersedes, for then there would not be a problem to begin with.
the reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument
(a) treats a partial solution to the stated problem as though it were a complete solution.
(b) fails to distinguish between prevention of a problem and successful containment of the adverse effects that the problem might cause.
(c) proposes a solution to the stated problem that does not actually solve the problem but merely makes someone else responsible for solving the problem.
(d) claims that a certain action would be a change for the better without explicitly considering what negative consequences the action might have.
(e) proposes that a certain action be based on information that would be unavailable at the time proposed for that action.
20. some flowering plant species entirely dependent on bees for pollination, lure their pollinators with abundant nectar and pollen, which are the only source of food for bees. often the pollinating species is so highly adapted that it can feed from-and thus pollinate-only a single species of plant. similarly, some plant species have evolved flowers that only a single species of bee can pollinate-an arrangement that places the plant species at great risk of extinction. if careless applications of pesticides destroy the pollinating bee species, the plant species itself can no longer reproduce.
the information above, if true, most strongly supports which one of the following?
(a) the earliest species of flowering plants appeared on earth contemporaneously with the earliest bee species.
(b) if the sole pollinator of a certain plant species is in no danger of extinction, the plant species it pollinates is also unlikely to become extinct.
(c) some bees are able to gather pollen and nectar from any species of plant.
(d) the blossoms of most species of bees and do not attract others.
(e) the total destruction of the habitat of some plant species could cause some bee species to become extinct.
21. the proper way to plan a scientific project is first to decide its goal and then to plan the best way to accomplish that goal. the united states space station project does not conform to this ideal. when the cold war ended, the project lost its original purpose, so an
other purpose was quickly grafted onto the project that of conducting limited-gravity experiments, even though such experiments can be done in an alternative way. it is, therefore, abundantly clear that the space station should not be built.
the reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument
(a) attacks the proponents of a claim rather than arguing against the claim itself.
(b) presupposes what it sets out to prove.
(c) faults planners for not foreseeing a certain event, when in fact that event was not foreseeable.
(d) contains statements that lead to a self-contradiction.
(e) concludes that a shortcoming is fatal having produced evidence only of the existence of that shortcoming.
22. only an expert in some branch of psychology could understand why patrick is behaving irrationally. but no expert is certain of being able to solve someone else’s problem. patrick wants to devise a solution to his own behavioral problem.
which one of the following conclusions can be validly drawn from the passage?
(a) patrick does not understand why he is behaving in this way.
(b) patrick is not an expert in psychology.
(c) patrick is not certain of being able to devise a solution to his own behavioral problem.
(d) unless charles is an expert in some branch of psychology, charles should not offer a solution to patrick’s behavioral problem.
(e) if charles is certain of being able to solve patrick’s behavioral problem, then charles does not understand why patrick is behaving in this way.
23. throughout european history famines have generally been followed by period of rising wages, because when a labor force is diminished, workers are more valuable in accordance with the law of supply and demand. the irish potato famine of the 1840s is an exception; it resulted in the death or emigration of half of ireland’s population, but there was no significant rise in the average wages in ireland in the following decade.
which one of the following, if true, would least contribute to an explanation of the exception to the generalization?
(a) improved medical care reduced the mortality rate among able-bodied adults in the decade following the famine to below prefamine levels.
(b) eviction policies of the landowners in ireland were designed to force emigration of the elderly and infirm, who could not work, and to retain a high percentage of able-bodied workers.
(c) advances in technology increased the efficiency of industry and agriculture, and so allowed maintenance of economic output with less demand for labor.
(d) the birth rate increased during the decade following the famine, and this compensated for much of the loss of population that was due to the famine.
(e) england, which had political control of ireland, legislated artificially low wages to provide english-owned industry and agriculture in ireland with cheap labor.
24. when the rate of inflation exceeds the rate of return on the most profitable investment available, the difference between those two rates will be the percentage by which, at a minimum, the value of any investment will decline. if in such a circumstance the value of a particular investment declines by more than that percentage. it must be true that________
which one of the following logically completes the argument?
(a) the rate of inflation has risen.
(b) the investment in question is becoming less profitable.
(c) the investment in question is less profitable than the most profitable investment available.
(d) the rate of return on the most profitable investment available has declined.
(e) there has been a change in which particular investment happens to be the most profitable available.
25. philosopher: the eighteenth-century thesis that motion is absolute asserts that the change in an object’s position over time could be measured without reference to the position of any other object. a well-respected physicist, however, claims that this thesis is incoherent. since a thesis that is incoherent cannot be accepted as absolute.
the argument uses which one of the following argumentative techniques?
(a) attempting to persuade by the mere use o technical terminology.
(b) using experimental results to justify a change in definition.
(c) relying on the authority of an expert to support a premise.
(d) inferring from what has been observed to be the case under experimental conditions to what is in principle true.
(e) generalizing from what is true in one region of space to what must be true in all regions of space.
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.
questions 1-2
a physician who is too through in conducting a medical checkup is likely to subject the patient to the discomfort and expense of unnecessary tests. one who is not thorough enough is likely to miss some serious problem and therefore give the patient a false sense of security. it is difficult for physicians to judge exactly how thorough they should be. therefore, it is generally unwise for patients to have medical checkups when they do not feel ill.
1. which one of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument in the passage?
(a) some serious diseases in their early stages have symptoms that physicians can readily detect.
(b) under the pressure of reduced reimbursements, physicians have been reducing the average amount of time they spend on each medical checkup.
(c) patients not medically trained are unable to judge foe themselves what degree of thoroughness is appropriate for physicians in conducting medical checkups.
(d) many people are financially unable to afford regular medical checkups.
(e) some physicians sometimes exercise exactly the right degree of thoroughness in performing a medical checkup.
2. which one of the following, if true, would provide the most support for the conclusion in the passage?
(a) not all medical tests entail significant discomfort.
(b) sometimes unnecessary medical tests cause healthy people to become ill.
(c) some patients refuse to accept a physician’s assurance that the patient is healthy.
(d) the more complete the series of tests performed in a medical checkup, the more likely it is that a rare disease, if present, will be discovered.
(e) physicians can eliminate the need to order certain tests by carefully questioning patients and rejecting some possibilities on that basis.
3. people often pronounce a word differently when asked to read written material aloud than when speaking spontaneously. these differences may cause problems for those who develop computers that recognize speech. usually the developers “train” the computers by using samples of written material read by the people who will be using the compute.
the observations above provide most evidence foe the conclusion that
(a) it will be impossible to develop computers that decode spontaneous speech.
(b) when reading written material, people who have different accents pronounce the same word in the same way as one another.
(c) computers may be less reliable in decoding spontaneous speech than in decoding samples that have been read aloud.
(d) a “trained” computer never correctly decodes the spontaneous speech of a person whose voice sample was used to train it.
(e) computers are now able to interpret oral speech without error.
4. one of the requirements for admission to the lunnville roller skating club is a high degree of skill in roller skating. the club president has expressed concern that the club may have discriminated against qualified women in its admissions this year. yet half of the applicants admitted to the club this year were women. this proves that there was no discrimination against qualified women applicants in the club’s admissions this year.
which one of the following is an assumption on which the conclusion of the argument depends?
(a) only a few applicants were found to be qualified and were admitted to the club this year.
(b) no more than half of all the roller skaters in lunnville are women.
(c) no more than half of all the roller skaters in lunnville are men.
(d) this year no more than half of the applicants who met all the qualifications for admission to the club were women.
(e) this year no more than half of the members of the club’s committee that makes decisions about applicants’ qualifications were men.
5. when girls are educated in single-sex secondary schools, they tend to do better academically than girls who attend mixed-sex schools. since alice achieved higher grades than any other woman in her first year at the university, she was probably educated at a single-sex school.
which one of the following most closely parallels the flawed reasoning used in the argument above?
(a)
when students have individual tutoring in math, they usually get good grades on their final exams. celia had individual tutoring in math so she will probably get a good grade.
(b) when babies are taught to swim, they have more than the average number of ear infections as they grow up. janice has more ear infections than any other person at the local swimming club, so she probably was taught to swim when she was a baby.
(c) when children study music at an early age, they later tend to appreciate a wide variety of music, so the talent of future musicians is best fostered at an early age.
(d) when children practice their piano scales for half an hour each day, they usually pass their piano exams. sally practices scales for less than half an hour each day, so she will probably fail her piano exam.
(e) when children have parents who help them with their homework, they usually do well in school. therefore, having help with homework is probably the cause of high academic achievement.
6. in the past century, north america has shifted its main energy source first from wood to coal, then from coal to oil and natural gas. with each transition, the newly dominant fuel has had less carbon and more hydrogen than its predecessor had. it is logical to conclude that in the future the main energy source will be pure hydrogen.
which one of the following expresses a general principle that could underlie the argument?
(a) if series of transitions from one state of a system to another state of that system is allowed to continue without interference, the initial state of the series will eventually recur.
(b) if each of two desirable attributes belongs to a useful substance, then the most useful form of that substance will have those two attributes in equal amounts.
(c) if the second stage of a process has been completed more quickly than the first stage, the third stage of that process will be completed more quickly than the second stage.
(d) if each step in a series of changes involves a decrease of one attribute of the thing undergoing the change and an increase of another, the series will terminate with the first attribute eliminated and only the second attribute present.
(e) if one substance is better for a certain purpose than another substance is, then the best substance for that purpose is one that includes among its attributes all of the attributes of the first substance and none of the attributes of the second substance.
question7-8
x: since many chemicals useful for agriculture and medicine derive from rare or endangered plant species, it is likely that many plant species that are now extinct could have provide us with substances that would have been a boon to humanity. therefore, if we want to ensure that chemicals from plants are available for use in the future, we must make more serious efforts to preserve for all time our natural resource.
y: but living things are not our “resources.” yours is a selfish approach to conservation. we should rather strive to preserve living species because they deserve to survive, not because of the good they can do us.
7. which one of the following is an issue about which x and y disagree?
(a) whether the benefits humans derive from exploring non-human species provides a good reason for preserving non-human species.
(b) whether the cost of preserving plant species outweighs that could otherwise be derived from those species.
(c) whether it is prudent to conserve natural resources
(d) whether humans should make efforts to prevent the extinction of living species.
(e) whether all non-human species are equally valuable as natural resources.
8. x’s argument relies on which one of the following assumptions?
(a) medicine would now be more advanced than it is if there had been a serious conservation policy in the past.
(b) all living things exist to serve humankind.
(c) the use of rare and endangered plant species as a source for chemicals will not itself render those species extinct.
(d) the only way to persuade people to preserve natural resources is to convince them that it is in their interest to do so.
(e) few, if any, plant species have been saved from extinction through human efforts.
9. there is relatively little room for growth in the overall carpet market, which is tied to the size of the population. most who purchase carpet do so only once or twice, first in their fifties or sixties. thus as the population ages, companies producing carpet will be able to gain market share competitors, and not through more aggressive marketing.
which one of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the conclusion above?
(a) most of the major carpet producers market other floor coverings as well.
(b) most established carpet producers market several differen
t brand names and varieties, and there is no remaining niche in the market for new brands to fill.
(c) two of the three mergers in the industry’s last ten years led to a decline in profits and revenues for the newly merged companies.
(d) price reductions, achieved by cost-cutting in production, by some of the dominant firms in the carpet market are causing other producers to leave the market altogether.
(e) the carpet market is unlike most markets in that consumers are becoming increasingly resistant to new patterns and styles.
10. decision makers tend to have distinctive styles. one such style is for the decision maker to seek the widest possible input from advisers and to explore alternatives while making up his or her mind. in fact, decision makers of this sort will often argue vigorously for a particular idea, emphasizing its strong points and downplaying its weaknesses, not because they actually believe in the idea but because they want to see if their real reservations about it are idiosyncratic or are held independently by their advisers.
which one of the following is most strongly supported by the statement above?
(a) if certain decision makers’ statements are quoted accurately and at length; the content of the quote could nonetheless be greatly at variance with the decision eventually make.
(b) certain decision makers do not know which ideas they do not really believe in until after they have presented a variety of ideas to their advisers
(c) if certain decision makers dismiss an idea out of hand, it must be because its weaknesses are more pronounced than any strong points it may have.
(d) certain decision makers proceed in a way that makes it likely that they will frequently decide in favor of ideas in which they do not believe.
(e) if certain decision makers’ advisers know the actual beliefs of those they advise, those advisers will give better advice than they would if they did not know those beliefs.
questions 11-12
the foreign minister of zeria announced today that her country was severing diplomatic relations with nandalo because of nandalo’s flagrant violations of human rights. but zeria continues to maintain diplomatic relations with many countries that the minister knows to have far worse human-rights records than nandalo does. therefore, despite the foreign minister’s claim, this latest diplomatic move cannot be explained exclusively by zeria’s commitment to upholding human rights.
11. which one of the following, if true, provides the most support for the argument in the passage?
(a) the country that currently buys most of zeria’s exports recently suggested that it might severely restrict its imports from zeria unless zeria broke off diplomatic relations with nanalo.
(b) two weeks after the zerian minister’s announcement, several other countries cited human-rights violations as a reason for severing diplomatic relations with nandalo
(c) more countries have expressed concern over reported human-rights violations in nandalo than have expressed concern over human-rights violations in zeria.
(d) nandalo has considered accusing zeria of violating the human rights of nandalo citizens living in zeria.
(e) the opposition party in zeria has long advocated severing trade relations with countries that systematically violate human rights but has opposed severing diplomatic relations.
12. the argumentative structure of which one of the following most closely parallels that of the argument in the passage?
(a) henry’s parents insist that he eat breakfast before leaving for school because not doing so would be bad for his health. but his parents themselves almost never eat breakfast, so their insistence cannot be completely explained by their concern for his health.
(b) professor walsh says that only typed term papers will be accepted because most handwriting is difficult to read. but since she lectures from handwritten notes, her policy cannot be exclusively explained by any difficulty she has with handwritten maternal.
(c) james claims that he stole only because he was hungry. but although hunger could account for stealing if food could not be readily obtained in any other way, in this case food was otherwise readily available, and so james theft cannot be completely explained by his hunger.
(d) armand declined helen’s invitation to dinner on the grounds that socializing with coworkers is imprudent. but since armand went to a movie with another coworker, maria, that same evening, his expressed concern for prudence cannot fully explain his refusal.
(e) it is often asserted that there are fewer good teachers than there used to be because teachers’ salaries have reached a new low. but teachers have always been poorly paid; so low salaries cannot fully explain this perceived decline in the effectiveness of teachers.
13. few politicians will support legislation that conflicts with their own self-interest. a case in point is august frenson, who throughout his eight terms in office consistently opposed measures limiting the advantage incumbents enjoy over their challengers. therefore, if such measures are to be enacted, they must result from direct popular vote rather from legislative action.
the case of august frenson plays which one of the following roles in the argument?
(a) it provides evidence, the falsity of which would guarantee the falsity of the author’s conclusion.
(b) it is cited as an example illustrating the generalization that is invoked.
(c) it gives essential background information concerning a measure being advocated.
(d) it demonstrates the extent to which incumbents have the advantage over challengers.
(e) it gives an example of the limits of direct popular vote.
14. in a learning experiment a researcher ran rats through a maze. some of the rats were blind, others deaf, others lacked a sense of smell, and others had no sensory deficiencies: yet all the rats learned the task in much the same amount of time. of the senses other than sight, hearing, and smell, only kinesthesia had not previously been shown to be irrelevant to maze-learning. the researcher concluded on the basis of these facts that kinesthesia, the sensation of bodily movement, is sufficient for maze-learning.
the researcher’s reasoning is most vulnerable to which one of the following criticisms?
(a) the small differences in proficiency found by the researcher did not appear to fall into a systematic pattern by group.
(b) the possibility that the interaction of kinesthesia with at least one other sense is required for maze-learning cannot be ruled out on the basis of the data above.
(c) it can be determined from the data that rats who are deprived of one of their sources of sensory stimulation become more reliant on kinesthesia than they had been, but the data do not indicate how such a transference takes place.
(d) it can be determined from the data that rats can learn to run mazes by depending on kinesthesia alone, but the possibility that rats respond to non-kinesthetic stimulation is not ruled out.
(e) it can be determined from the data that maze-learning in rats depends on at least two sources of sensory stimulation, one of which is kinesthesia, but which of the remaining sources must also be employed is not determinable.
15. new legislation would require a seven-day waiting period in the sale of handguns to private individuals, in order that records of prisons could be checked and the sale of handguns to people likely to hurt other people thereby prevented. people opposed to this legislation claim that prison records are so full of errors that the proposed law would prevent as many law-abiding citizens as criminals from having access to handguns.
if the claim made by people opposed to the new legislation is true, which one of the following is a principle that, if established, would do the most to justify opposition to the new legislation on the basis of that claim?
(a) the rights of law-abiding citizens are more worthy of protection than are the rights of criminals.
(b) nothing should be done to restrict potential criminals at the cost of placing restrictions on law-abiding citizens.
(c) legislation should not be enacted if no benefit could accrue to society as a result of that legislation.
(d) no restrictions should be placed on the sale of merchandise unless sale of that merchandise could endanger innocent people.
(e) even citizens who are neither fugitives nor felons should not be permitted to own a handgun unless they have received adequate training.
questions 16-17
the gulches is an area of volcanic rock that is gashed by many channels that lead downhill from the site of a prehistoric glacier to a river. the channels clearly were cut by running water. it was once accepted as fact that the cutting occurred gradually, as the glacier melted. but one geologist theorized that the channels were cut in a short time by an enormous flood. the channels do show physical evidence of having been formed quickly, but the flood theory was originally rejected because scientists knew of no natural process that could melt so much ice so quickly. paradoxically, today the scientific community accepts the flood theory even though scientists still do not know of a process that can melt so much ice so quickly.
16. which one of the following is supported by the information in the passage?
(a) only running water can cause deep channels in volcanic rock.
(b) the river did not exist before the channels were cut.
(c) geologists cannot determine the amount of heat required to melt a glacier quickly.
(d) the physical effects of water on rock
vary with the speed with which those effects are produced.
(e) geologists are compelled to reject physical evidence when it leads to an unexplainable conclusion.
17. which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent paradox in the passage?
(a) rippies, which indicate that the channels were cut by water, have been discovered in the floors of the channels.
(b) the guiches is known to be similar in certain respects to many other volcanic rock formations.
(c) more than one glacier was present in the area during prehistoric times.
(d) volcanic rock is more easily cut by water than are other forms of rock.
(e) scientists now believe that the prehistoric glacier dammed a source of water, created a huge lake in the process, and then retreated.
18. advertisement: attention pond owners! ninety-eight percent of mosquito larvae in a pond die within minutes after the pond has been treated with bti. yet bti is not toxic to fish, birds, animals, plants, or beneficial insects. so by using bti regularly to destroy their larvae, you can greatly reduce populations of pesky mosquitoes that hatch in your pond, and you can do so without diminishing the populations of fish, frogs, or beneficial insects in and around the pond.
which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
(a) the most effective way to control the numbers of mosquitoes in a given area is to destroy the mosquito larvae in that area.
(b) populations of mosquitoes are not dependent on a single body of water within an area as a place foe their larvae to hatch and develop
(c) there are no insect pests besides mosquitoes that pond owners might want to eliminate from in and around their pond.
(d) the effectiveness of bti in destroying mosquito larvae in a pond does not require the pond owner’s strict adherence to specific application procedures.
(e) the fish, frogs, and beneficial insects in and around a pond-owner’s pond do not depend on mosquito larvae as an important source of food.
19 many people change their wills on their own every few years, in response to significant changes in their personal or financial circumstances. this practice can create a problem foe the executor when these people are careless and do not date their wills: the executor will then often know neither which one of several undated wills is the most recent, nor whether the will drawn up last has ever been found. therefore, people should not only date their wills but also state in any new will which will it supersedes, for then there would not be a problem to begin with.
the reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument
(a) treats a partial solution to the stated problem as though it were a complete solution.
(b) fails to distinguish between prevention of a problem and successful containment of the adverse effects that the problem might cause.
(c) proposes a solution to the stated problem that does not actually solve the problem but merely makes someone else responsible for solving the problem.
(d) claims that a certain action would be a change for the better without explicitly considering what negative consequences the action might have.
(e) proposes that a certain action be based on information that would be unavailable at the time proposed for that action.
20. some flowering plant species entirely dependent on bees for pollination, lure their pollinators with abundant nectar and pollen, which are the only source of food for bees. often the pollinating species is so highly adapted that it can feed from-and thus pollinate-only a single species of plant. similarly, some plant species have evolved flowers that only a single species of bee can pollinate-an arrangement that places the plant species at great risk of extinction. if careless applications of pesticides destroy the pollinating bee species, the plant species itself can no longer reproduce.
the information above, if true, most strongly supports which one of the following?
(a) the earliest species of flowering plants appeared on earth contemporaneously with the earliest bee species.
(b) if the sole pollinator of a certain plant species is in no danger of extinction, the plant species it pollinates is also unlikely to become extinct.
(c) some bees are able to gather pollen and nectar from any species of plant.
(d) the blossoms of most species of bees and do not attract others.
(e) the total destruction of the habitat of some plant species could cause some bee species to become extinct.
21. the proper way to plan a scientific project is first to decide its goal and then to plan the best way to accomplish that goal. the united states space station project does not conform to this ideal. when the cold war ended, the project lost its original purpose, so an
other purpose was quickly grafted onto the project that of conducting limited-gravity experiments, even though such experiments can be done in an alternative way. it is, therefore, abundantly clear that the space station should not be built.
the reasoning in the argument is flawed because the argument
(a) attacks the proponents of a claim rather than arguing against the claim itself.
(b) presupposes what it sets out to prove.
(c) faults planners for not foreseeing a certain event, when in fact that event was not foreseeable.
(d) contains statements that lead to a self-contradiction.
(e) concludes that a shortcoming is fatal having produced evidence only of the existence of that shortcoming.
22. only an expert in some branch of psychology could understand why patrick is behaving irrationally. but no expert is certain of being able to solve someone else’s problem. patrick wants to devise a solution to his own behavioral problem.
which one of the following conclusions can be validly drawn from the passage?
(a) patrick does not understand why he is behaving in this way.
(b) patrick is not an expert in psychology.
(c) patrick is not certain of being able to devise a solution to his own behavioral problem.
(d) unless charles is an expert in some branch of psychology, charles should not offer a solution to patrick’s behavioral problem.
(e) if charles is certain of being able to solve patrick’s behavioral problem, then charles does not understand why patrick is behaving in this way.
23. throughout european history famines have generally been followed by period of rising wages, because when a labor force is diminished, workers are more valuable in accordance with the law of supply and demand. the irish potato famine of the 1840s is an exception; it resulted in the death or emigration of half of ireland’s population, but there was no significant rise in the average wages in ireland in the following decade.
which one of the following, if true, would least contribute to an explanation of the exception to the generalization?
(a) improved medical care reduced the mortality rate among able-bodied adults in the decade following the famine to below prefamine levels.
(b) eviction policies of the landowners in ireland were designed to force emigration of the elderly and infirm, who could not work, and to retain a high percentage of able-bodied workers.
(c) advances in technology increased the efficiency of industry and agriculture, and so allowed maintenance of economic output with less demand for labor.
(d) the birth rate increased during the decade following the famine, and this compensated for much of the loss of population that was due to the famine.
(e) england, which had political control of ireland, legislated artificially low wages to provide english-owned industry and agriculture in ireland with cheap labor.
24. when the rate of inflation exceeds the rate of return on the most profitable investment available, the difference between those two rates will be the percentage by which, at a minimum, the value of any investment will decline. if in such a circumstance the value of a particular investment declines by more than that percentage. it must be true that________
which one of the following logically completes the argument?
(a) the rate of inflation has risen.
(b) the investment in question is becoming less profitable.
(c) the investment in question is less profitable than the most profitable investment available.
(d) the rate of return on the most profitable investment available has declined.
(e) there has been a change in which particular investment happens to be the most profitable available.
25. philosopher: the eighteenth-century thesis that motion is absolute asserts that the change in an object’s position over time could be measured without reference to the position of any other object. a well-respected physicist, however, claims that this thesis is incoherent. since a thesis that is incoherent cannot be accepted as absolute.
the argument uses which one of the following argumentative techniques?
(a) attempting to persuade by the mere use o technical terminology.
(b) using experimental results to justify a change in definition.
(c) relying on the authority of an expert to support a premise.
(d) inferring from what has been observed to be the case under experimental conditions to what is in principle true.
(e) generalizing from what is true in one region of space to what must be true in all regions of space.