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TEST I
30 Minutes 20 Questions
1. A mail order company recently had a big jump in clothing sales after hiring a copywriter and a graphic artist to give its clothing catalog a magazinelike format designed to appeal to a more upscale clientele. The company is now planning to launch a housewares catalog using the same concept.
The company’s plan assumes that
(A) other housewares catalogs with magazinelike formats do not already exist
(B) an upscale clientele would be interested in a housewares catalog
(C) the same copywriter and graphic artist could be employed for both the clothing and housewares catalogs
(D) a magazinelike format requires a copywriter and a graphic artist（B）
(E) customers to whom the old clothing catalog appealed would continue to make purchases from catalogs with the new format
2. Civic Leader: The high cancer rate among our citizens is the result of hazardous material produced at your plant.
Board of Directors: Our statistics show that rates of cancer are high throughout the valley in which the plant is situated because local wells that supply drinking water are polluted, not because of the plant.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the board’s claims?
(A) The statistics do not differentiate between types of cancer.
(B) Nearby communities have not changed the sources of their drinking water.
(C) Cancer-causing chemicals used at the plant are discharged into a nearby river and find their way into local wells.
(D) The plant both uses and produces chemicals that have been shown to cause cancer.（C）
(E) Some of the pollutants cited by the board as contaminating the local wells have been present in the wells for decades.
3. Economies in which a high percentage of resources are invested in research and development show greater growth in the long run than do those in which resources are channeled into consumption. Japanese workers spend a higher percentage of their income investing in research and development than do American workers.
To grow
as fast as
Which of the following, if true, tends to weaken the argument?
(A) Japanese research is more focused on consumers than is research by American firms.
(B) Class mobility, highly valued in American culture, is encouraged by a growing rather than a stagnant economy.
(C) Studies have shown that countries with high consumption rates prosper in the short run.
(D) Proposed changes to the tax code could involve strict limits on the deductability of interest, and increased allowance for research.（E）
(E)
Because a decreasing percentage of the
4. Television programming experts maintain that with each 1% increase in the prime-time ratings of a television station there is a 3.5% increase in the number of people who watch its evening news program. However, in the last ten years at Channel NTR, there was only one year of extremely high prime-time ratings and during that year, fewer people than ever watched Channel NTR’s evening news program.
Which of the following conclusions can properly be drawn from the statements above?
(A) When a news program has good ratings, the channel as a whole will have good ratings.
(B) The programming experts neglected to consider daytime news programs.
(C) The year of high ratings at NTR was a result of two hit shows which were subsequently canceled because of contractual problems.
(D) The ten-year period in question is not representative of normal viewing patterns.（E）
(E) Prime-time ratings are not the only factor affecting how many people watch an evening news program.
5. The people who are least likely to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service this year are those who have been audited since 1985 and who were found to have made no mistakes in filing their returns during that audit.
Of the following people, who is MOST likely to be audited by the IRS?
(A) A person who was audited in 1986 but was not found to have made any mistakes in filing his return.
(B) A person who was audited in 1986 and whose lawyer corrected several mistakes in the tax return prior to the filing deadline.
(C) A person whose spouse was convicted of tax fraud in 1987, who was then audited and found to have made no mistakes.
(D) A person who was last audited in 1984, and had no mistakes uncovered by the IRS during that audit.（D）
(E) A person who was audited in each of the past five years, but was found to have made no mistakes in any of the filings.
6. James’s grade point
average puts him in the top third of the graduating class of college A. Nestor
is in the top tenth of the same class.
If the information above is true, which of the following must also be true?
(A)
James has a higher grade point average than
(B)
James has a higher grade point average than
(C)
Nestor has a higher grade point average than
(D) Elizabeth and Nancy both have a higher grade point average than James.（C）
(E)
Nestor and James both have a higher grade point average than
7. Whenever a major airplane accident occurs, there is a dramatic increase in the number of airplane mishaps reported, a phenomenon that may last for as long as a few months after the accident. Airline officials assert that the publicity given the gruesomeness of major airplane accidents focuses media attention on the airline industry and the increase in the number of reported accidents is caused by an increase in the number of news sources covering airline accident, not by an increase in the number of accidents.
Which of the following, if true, would seriously weaken the assertions of the airline officials?
(A) The publicity surrounding airline accidents is largely limited to the country in which the crash occurred.
(B) Airline accidents tend to occur far more often during certain peak travel months.
(C) News organizations do not have any guidelines to help them decide how severe or how close an accident must be for it to receive coverage.
(D) Airplane accidents receive coverage by news sources only when the news sources find it advantageous to do so.（B）
(E) Studies by government regulations show that the number of airplane flight miles remains relatively constant from month to month.
Questions 8-9 are based on the following.
Investing in real estate would be a profitable venture at this time. A survey in House magazine revealed that 85% of the magazine’s readers are planning to buy a second home over the next few years. A study of the real estate industry, however, revealed that the current supply of homes could only provide for 65% of that demand each year.
8. Which of the following, if true, reveals a weakness in the evidence cited above?
(A) Real estate is a highly labor-intensive business.
(B) Home builders are not evenly distributed across the country.
(C) The number of people who want second homes has been increasing each year for the past ten years.
(D) Readers of House magazine are more likely than most people to want second homes.（D）
(E) House magazine includes articles about owning a second home as well as articles about building a second home.
9. Which of the following, if true, would undermine the validity of the investment advice in the paragraph above?
(A) Some home owners are satisfied with only one home.
(B) About half of the people who buy homes are investing in their first home.
(C) About half of the people who buy homes have to take out a mortgage to do so.
(D) Only a quarter of the homes that are built are sold within the first two weeks.（E）
(E) Only a quarter of those who claim that they want a second home actually end up purchasing one.
10. Traffic safety experts predict that
the installation of newly designed air bags in all cars in the
Which of the following, if true, represents the strongest challenge to the DOT’s proposal?
(A) Air bags of the new design are more given to being inadvertently triggered, an occurrence that can sometimes result in fatal traffic accidents.
(B) The DOT is planning to require automobile manufacturers to produce these air bags according to very strict specifications.
(C) After installing air bags in new cars, automobile manufacturers will experience an increase in sales.
(D) The proposed air bag installation program will adversely affect the resale of cars manufactured prior to 1998.（A）
(E) As production costs increase, the profits of many domestic automobile dealers show a marked decrease.
11. A private bus company gained greater profits and provided bus service to the area at lower fares by running buses more frequently and stimulating greater ridership. Hoping to continue these financial trends, the company plans to replace all older buses with new, larger buses, including some double-decker buses,.
The plan of the bus company as described above assumes all of the following EXCEPT
(A) the demand for bus service in the company’s area of service will increase in the future
(B) increased efficiency and revenues will compensate for any new expenses the company incurs
(C) the new buses will be sufficiently reliable to ensure the company a net financial gain once they are in place
(D) driving the new buses will be no more difficult than driving the buses they are to replace（D）
(E) the larger, double-decker buses will not face obstacles such as height and weight restrictions in the bus company’s area of service
12. A newly discovered disease is thought to be caused by a certain bacterium. However, recently released data notes that the bacterium thrives in the presence of a certain virus, implying that it is actually the virus that causes the new disease.
Which of the following pieces of evidence would most support the data’s implication?
(A) In the absence of the virus, the disease has been observed to follow infection by the bacterium.
(B) The virus has been shown to aid the growth of bacterium, a process which often leads to the onset of the disease.
(C) The virus alone has been observed in many cases of the disease.
(D) In cases where the disease does not develop, infection by the bacterium is usually preceded by infection by the virus.（C）
(E) Onset of the disease usually follows infection by both the virus and the bacterium.
13. A sociologist recently studied two sets of teenagers. The members of one set spent 10 or more hours per week watching violent television programs, and the members of the other set spent 2 hours or less per week watching violent television programs. A significantly greater proportion of the teenagers in the former group exhibited aggressive behavior during the period of the study. The sociologists reasoned that the prolonged exposure to television violence caused the aggressive behavior.
Which of the following, if true, of the teenagers in the study, provides the strongest challenge to the sociologist’s conclusion?
(A) Some teenagers who watched more than 10 hours of violent television programming per week behaved less aggressively than others in the same group of teenagers.
(B) Some teenagers who watched 2 hours of violent television programming per week did not behave aggressively.
(C) Some teenagers voluntarily stopped watching violent television programs after being victims of violence.
(D) Some teenagers watched violent television programs alone, while others did so in groups.（E）
(E) Many of the teenagers in the first group exhibited aggressive behavior before the study began.
14. Because of a recent drought in
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?
(A) The recent drought was not as severe as scientists predicted.
(B)
States other than
(C) Other ingredients are used in the production of orange juice.
(D) Last year the price of oranges was actually lower than the average price over the past ten years.（B）
(E) The price of oranges will eventually be $0.48 per crate.
Questions 15-16 are based on the following.
Local phone companies have monopolies on phone service within their areas. Cable television can be transmitted via the wires that are already in place and owned by the phone companies. Cable television companies argue that if the telephone companies were to offer cable service, these telephone companies would have an unfair advantage, because their cable transmissions could be subsidized by the profits of their monopolies on phone service.
15. Which of the following, if true, would ease the cable companies’ fear of unfair competition?
(A) In order to use existing telephone wire, telephone companies would need to modernize their operations, a process so expensive it would virtually wipe out all profit from their monopoly for the foreseeable future.
(B) If a phone company were to offer cable service within a particular area, it would have a monopoly within that area.
(C) The cost of television service, whether provided by cable or telephone companies, scales; that is, the total cost of transmission rises only marginally as more homes are added to the network.
(D) Cable programming that offers more channels is already available through satellite dish, but the initial cost of the dish is extremely high.（A）
(E) Cable television will never be able to compete with the burgeoning video rental industry, especially as more homes now have video cassette recorders than ever did before.
16. On the basis of the information provided in the passage above, which of the following questions can be answered?
(A) Are phone companies as efficient as cable companies in providing reliable and inexpensive service?
(B) If phone companies were allowed to provide cable service, would they want to do so?
(C) Do the cable companies believe that the local phone companies make a profit on phone service?
(D) Are local phone companies forbidden to offer cable service?（C）
(E) Is it expected that phone companies will have a monopoly on cable service?
17. In the past year, there has been a large drop in the number of new cars sold, due to harsh economic conditions in the marketplace and high taxes. At the same time, the average price paid for a new car has risen dramatically.
Which of the following, if true, best explains the increase in the average price of a new car?
(A) The price of used cars has climbed steadily over the past ten years.
(B) There will be a tax reduction later in the year which is expected to aid moderate and low income families.
(C) The market for expensive car has been unaffected by the current economic conditions.
(D) Economic conditions are expected to get significantly worse before the end of the year.（C）
(E) Low demand for trucks and vans has led to lower production in the factories.
18. Critics of sales seminars run by outside consultants point out that since 1987, revenues of vacuum cleaner companies whose employees attended consultant-led seminars were lower than revenues of vacuum cleaner companies whose employees did not attend such seminars. The critics charge that for vacuum cleaner companies, the sales seminars are ill conceived and a waste of money.
Which of the following, if true, is the most effective challenge to the critics of sales seminars?
(A) Those vacuum cleaner companies whose sales were highest prior to 1987 are the only companies that did not send employees to the seminars.
(B) Vacuum cleaner companies that have sent employees to sales seminars since 1987 experienced a greater drop in sales than they had prior to 1987.
(C) The cost of vacuum cleaner sales seminars run by outside consultants has risen dramatically since 1987.
(D) The poor design of vacuum cleaner sales seminars is not the only reason for their ineffectiveness.（A）
(E) Since 1987, sales of vacuum cleaners have risen twenty percent.
19. Informed people generally assimilate information from several divergent sources before coming to an opinion. However, most popular news organizations view foreign affairs solely through the eyes of our State Department. In reporting the political crisis in foreign country B, news organizations must endeavor to find alternative sources of information.
Which of the following inferences can be drawn from the argument above?
(A) To the degree that a news source gives an account of another country that mirrors that of our State Department, that reporting is suspect.
(B) To protect their integrity, news media should avoid the influence of State Department releases in their coverage of foreign affairs.
(C) Reporting that is not influenced by the State Department is usually more accurate than are other accounts.
(D) The alternative sources of information mentioned in the passage would probably not share the same views as the State Department.（D）
(E) A report cannot be seen as influenced by the State Department if it accurately depicts the events in a foreign country.
20. A light bulb company produces 2,000 light bulbs per week. The manager wants to ensure that standards of quality remain constant from week to week. The manager, therefore, claims that out of 2,000 light bulbs produced per week, 500 light bulbs are rejected.
Of the following, the best criticism of the manager’s plan is that the plan assumes that
(A) light bulb manufacturers cannot accept all light bulbs that produced
(B) the overall quality of the light bulbs would not be improved if the total number of light bulbs produced were reduced
(C) each light bulb that is reviewed is worthy of being reviewed
(D) it is difficult to judge the quality of a light bulb（E）
(E) the 1,500 light bulbs that are accepted will be of the same quality from week to week
TEST I
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1. B |
2. C |
3. E |
4. E |
5. D |
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6. C |
7. B |
8. D |
9. E |
10. A |
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11. D |
12. C |
13. E |
14. B |
15. A |
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16. C |
17. C |
18. A |
19. D |
20. E |
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