Which of the following best completes the passage below?
In today?s pluralistic society, textbook publishers find themselves in an increasingly uncomfortable position. Since the schools are regarded as a repository of society?s moral and cultural values, each group within society wishes to prevent any material that offends its own values from appearing in textbooks. As a result, stance on an issue is certain to run afoul of one group or another. And since textbook publishers must rely on community goodwill to sell their books, it is inevitable that______

(A) fewer and fewer publishers will be willing to enter the financially uncertain textbook industry
(B) the ethical and moral content of textbooks will become increasingly neutral and bland
(C) more and more pressure groups will arise that seek to influence the content of textbooks
(D) the government will be forced to intervene in the increasingly rancorous debate over the content of textbooks
(E) school boards, teachers, and principals will find it nearly impossible to choose among the variety of textbooks being offered

In one state , all cities and most towns have antismoking ordinance . A petition entitled petition for statewide smoking restriction is being circulated to voters by campaign workers who ask only. Do you want to sign a petition for statewide smoking restriction the petition advocates a state law banning smoking in most retail establishments and in government offices that are open to the public .

Which of the following circumstances would make the petition as circulated misleading to voters who understand the proposal as extending the local ordinances statewide ?

A. The state law would not affect existing local ordinances baning smoking in places where the fire authorities have determined that smoking would constitute a fire hazard

B. Health costs associated with smoking cause health insurance premiums to rise for everyone and so affect nonsmokers

C. In rural areas of the state, there are relatively few retail establishment and government offices that are open to the public

D. The state law would supersede the local antismoking ordinances, which contain stronger bans than the state law does

E. There is considerable sentiment among voters in most areas of the state for restriction of smoking

A researcher discovered that people who have low levels of immune-system activity tend to score much lower on tests of mental health than do people with normal or high immune-system activity. The researcher concluded from this experiment that the immune system protects against mental illness as well as against physical disease.
The researcher’s conclusion depends on which of the following assumptions?

A) High immune-system activity protects against mental illness better than normal immune-system activity does.

B) Mental illness is similar to physical disease in its effects on body systems.

C) People with high immune-system activity cannot develop mental illness.

D) Mental illness does not cause people’s immune-system activity to decrease.

E) Psychological treatment of mental illness is not as effective as is medical treatment.

Which of the following best completes the passage below?

In a survey of job applicants, two-fifths admitted to being at least a little dishonest. However, the survey may underestimate the proportion of job applicants who are dishonest, because____.

A) some dishonest people taking the survey might have claimed on the survey to be honest

B) some generally honest people taking the survey might have claimed on the survey to be dishonest

C) some people who claimed on the survey to be at least a little dishonest may be very dishonest

D) some people who claimed on the survey to be dishonest may have been answering honestly

E) some people who are not job applicants are probably at least a little dishonest

Although many brands of gasoline are sold on Haibei island, gasoline companies there get all of the refined gasoline they sell from Haibei seaport’s only storage tank, which is always refilled with the same quality of gasoline. Therefore, the brands of gasoline for sale on Haibei may be different in name and price, but there are identical in quality.

The conclusion drawn above depends on which of the following assumptions?

a) Consumers are usually unaware of variations in the quality of the gasoline they buy unless those variations are announced by the gasoline companies.

b) When tankers make gasoline delivery at Haibei’s seaport, the storage tank an Haibei always receives the same quality of gasoline as that in the preceding delivery.

c) There is a wide variation in the price at which the deferent brands of gasoline on Haibei are sold.

d) If any gasoline company on Haibei alters the quality of its gasoline before sale, the other gasoline companies also use method before sale that result in the same change in the quality of their gasoline.

e) The gasoline storage tank on Haibei’s large enough to meet the needs of all of Haibei’s different gasoline companies.

Unlike the wholesale price of uncut diamonds, the wholesale price of other uncut gemstones has fallen considerably in the last year. Thus, although the retail price of jewelry made with gemstones other than diamonds has not yet fallen, it will inevitably fall. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

A) The cost of processing uncut gemstones has increased during the last year.
B) The wholesale price of uncut diamonds is typically higher than that of the same volume of other uncut gemstones.
C) The operating costs of the average retail jewelry store have remained constant during the last year.
D) The cost of mining gemstones other than diamonds has increased in the last year.
E) Changes in retail prices always lag behind changes in wholesale prices.

For the safety-conscious Swedish market, a United States manufacturer of desktop computers developed a special display screen that produces a much weaker electromagnetic field surrounding the user than do ordinary screens. Despite an advantage in this respect over its competitors, the manufacturer is introducing the screen into the United States market without advertising it as a safety improvement.Which of the following, if true, provides a rationalefor the manufacturer’s approach to advertising the screen in the United States?

(A) Many more desktop computers are sold each year in the United States market than are
sold in the Swedish market.
(B) The manufacturer does not want its competitors to become aware of the means by which the
company has achieved this advance in technology.
(C) Most business and scientific purchasers of desktop computers expect to replace such equip-
ment eventually as better technology becomes available on the market.
(D) An emphasis on the comparative safety of the new screen would call into question the safety
of the many screens the manufacturer has already sold in the United States.
(E) Concern has been expressed in the United States over the health effects of the large electromagnetic fields surrounding electric power lines.

In 1990 all of the people who applied for a job at Evco also applied for a job at Radeco, and Evco
and Radeco each offered jobs to half of these appli- cants. Therefore, every one of these applicants must have been offered a job in 1990. The argument above is based on which of the
following assumptions about these job applicants?

(A) All of the applicants were very well qualified for a job at either Evco or Radeco.
(B) All of the applicants accepted a job at either Evco or Radeco.
(C) None of the applicants was offered a job by both Evco and Radeco.
(D) None of the applicants had applied for jobs at places other than Evco and Radeco.
(E) None of the applicants had perviously worked for either Evco or Radeco

A prominent investor who holds a large stake in the Burton Tool company has recently claimed that the company is mismanaged, citing as evidence the company’s failure to slow production in response to a recent rise in its inventory of finished products. It is doubtful whether an investor’s sniping at management can ever be anything other than counterproductive, but in this case it is clearly not justified. It is true that an increased inventory of finished products often indicates that production is outstripping demand, but in Burton’s case it indicates no such thing. Rather, the increase in inventory is entirely attributable to products that have already been assigned to orders received from customers.

In the argument given, the two boldfaced portions (”company is mismanaged” and “but in this case it is clearly not justified”) play which of the following roles?

A. The first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second provides evidence to undermine the support for the position being opposed.

B. The first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second is evidence that has been used to support the position being opposed.

C. The first states the position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second states the conclusion of the argument as a whole.

D. The first is evidence that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second provides information to undermine the force of that evidence.

E. The first is evidence that has been used to support a position that the argument as a whole opposes; the second states the conclusion of the argument as a whole.

The more frequently employees that take a break for guided relaxation exercises during working hours each week, the fewer sick days they take.  Even workers who take a guided relaxation break once a week during working hours take less sick leave than those who do not perform relaxation.  Therefore, if companies started guided relaxation programs, the absentee rate in those companies would decrease significantly.Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

A)  Employees who do guided relaxation exercises during working hours occasionally fall asleep for short periods of time after the exercises.
B)  Employees who are frequently absent are the least likely to cooperate with or to join a corporate relaxation program.
C)  Employees who do guided relaxation exercises only once a week in their company’s fitness program usually also do relaxation exercises at home.
D)  Employees who do guided relaxation exercises in their company’s relaxation program use their working time no more productively than those who do not do relaxation exercises.
E)  Employees do guided relaxation exercises during working hours take slightly longer lunch breaks than employees who do not do relaxation exercises.

Seeking a competitive advantage, some professional service firms (for example, firms providing advertising, accounting, or health care services) have considered offering unconditional guarantees of satisfaction. Such guarantees specify what clients can expect and what the firm will do if it fails to fulfill these expectations. Particularly with first-time clients, an unconditional guarantee can be an effective marketing tool if the client is very cautious, the firm’s fees are high, the negative consequences of bad service are grave, or business is difficult to obtain through referrals and word-of-mouth.

However, an unconditional guarantee can sometimes hinder marketing efforts. With its implication that failure is possible, the guarantee may, paradoxically, cause clients to doubt the service firm’s ability to deliver the promised level of service. It may conflict with a firm’s desire to appear sophisticated, or may even suggest that a firm is begging for business. In legal and health care services, it may mislead clients by suggesting that lawsuits or medical procedures will have guaranteed outcomes. Indeed, professional service firms with outstanding reputations and performance to match have little to gain from offering unconditional guarantees. And any firm that implements an unconditional guarantee without undertaking a commensurate commitment to quality of service is merely employing a potentially costly marketing gimmick.

1) The primary function of the passage as a whole is to
(A) account for the popularity of a practice
(B) evaluate the utility of a practice
(C) demonstrate how to institute a practice
(D) weigh the ethics of using a strategy
(E) explain the reasons for pursuing a strategy

2) All of the following are mentioned in the passage as circumstances in which professional service firms can benefit from offering an unconditional guarantee EXCEPT:
(A) The firm is having difficulty retaining its clients of long standing.
(B) The firm is having difficulty getting business through client recommendations.
(C) The firm charges substantial fees for its services.
(D) The adverse effects of poor performance by the firm are significant for the client.
(E) The client is reluctant to incur risk.

3) Which of the following is cited in the passage as a goal of some professional service firms in offering unconditional guarantees of satisfaction?
(A) A limit on the firm’s liability
(B) Successful competition against other firms
(C) Ability to justify fee increases
(D) Attainment of an outstanding reputation in a field
(E) Improvement in the quality of the firm’s service

4) The passage’s description of the issue raised by unconditional guarantees for health care or legal services most clearly implies that which of the following is true?
(A) The legal and medical professions have standards of practice that would be violated by attempts to fulfill such unconditional guarantees.
(B) The result of a lawsuit of medical procedure cannot necessarily be determined in advance by the professionals handling a client’s case.
(C) The dignity of the legal and medical professions is undermined by any attempts at marketing of professional services, including unconditional guarantees.
(D) Clients whose lawsuits or medical procedures have unsatisfactory outcomes cannot be adequately compensated by financial settlements alone.
(E) Predicting the monetary cost of legal or health care services is more difficult than predicting the monetary cost of other types of professional services.

5) Which of the following hypothetical situations best exemplifies the potential problem noted in the second sentence of the second paragraph (lines 14-17)?
(A) A physician’s unconditional guarantee of satisfaction encourages patients to sue for malpractice if they are unhappy with the treatment they receive.
(B) A lawyer’s unconditional guarantee of satisfaction makes clients suspect that the lawyer needs to find new clients quickly to increase the firm’s income.
(C) A business consultant’s unconditional guarantee of satisfaction is undermined when the consultant fails to provide all of the services that are promised.
(D) An architect’s unconditional guarantee of satisfaction makes clients wonder how often the architect’s buildings fail to please clients.
(E) An accountant’s unconditional guarantee of satisfaction leads clients to believe that tax returns prepared by the accountant are certain to be accurate.

6) The passage most clearly implies which of the following about the professional service firms mentioned in line 22?
(A) They are unlikely to have offered unconditional guarantees of satisfaction in the past.
(B) They are usually profitable enough to be able to compensate clients according to the terms of an unconditional guarantee.
(C) They usually practice in fields in which the outcomes are predictable.
(D) Their fees are usually more affordable than those charged by other professional service firms.
(E) Their clients are usually already satisfied with the quality of service that is delivered.

Some commentators complain that a litigation explosion in the past decade has led to unreasonably high costs for U.S. businesses by encouraging more product liability suits against manufacturers. However, these complaints are based mainly on myth. Statistics show that the number of successful product liability suits has remained almost the same, and the average sum awarded in damages has grown no faster than the inflation rate.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above?

(A) The number of unsuccessful suits has skyrocketed, imposing huge new legal expenses on businesses.
(B) Several of the largest awards ever made in product liability cases occurred within the last two years.
(C) The rise of the consumer movement has encouraged citizens to seek legal redress for product flaws.
(D) Lawyers often undertake product liability cases on a contingency basis, so their payment is based on the size of the damages awarded.
(E) Juries often award damages in product liability suits out of emotional sympathy for an injured consumer.

According to a review of 38 studies of patients suffering from water retention, a large majority of the patients reported that fasting eased their suffering considerably.  Yet fasting is not used to treat water retention even though the conventional medications often has serious side effects.Which of the following, if true, best explains the fact that fasting is not used as a treatment for water retention?

A. For a small percentage of patients with water retention, fasting induces a temporary sense of nausea
B. Getting patients with water retention to fast regularly is more difficult than getting healthy patients to do so.
C.  Fasting regularly over a long period of time can lead to temporary impairment of balance comparable to that induced by consuming several ounces of alcohol.
D.  The dramatic shifts in water retention connected with fasting have not been traced to particular changes in brain chemistry.
E.  The water retention returns in full force as soon as the fast is broken by even a small meal.

The burden of maintaining the U.S. highway system falls disproportionately on the trucking industry. Trucks represent only about 10 percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads. Yet road use taxes assessed on trucks amount to almost half the taxes paid for highway upkeep and repair.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above?

(A) The trucking industry has enjoyed record after-tax profits in three of the past four years.
(B) Because of their weight, trucks cause over 50 percent of the damage sustained by highway surfaces each year.
(C) Without an economically viable trucking industry, the cost of goods in the United States would rise significantly.
(D) Road use taxes paid by trucking companies have decreased by 3 percent over the past five years.
(E) Due to years of neglect, U.S. highways today are badly in need of major repairs and rebuilding.

Most employees in the computer industry move from company to company, changing jobs several times in their careers. However, Summit Computers is known throughout the industry for retaining its employees. Summit credits its success in retaining employees to its informal, nonhierarchical work environment.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports Summit’s explanation of its success in retaining employees?

(A) Some people employed in the computer industry change jobs if they become bored with
their current projects
(B) A hierarchical work environment hinders the cooperative exchange of ideas that computer
industry employees consider necessary for their work.
(C) Many of Summit’s senior employees had previously worked at only one other computer
company.
(D) In a nonhierarchical work environment, people avoid behavior that might threaten group harmony and thus avoid discussing with their colleagues any dissatisfaction they might have with their jobs.
(E) The cost of living near Summit is relatively low compared to areas in which some other
computer companies are located.

Alba: I don’t intend to vote for Senator Frank in the next election. She is not a strong supporter of the war against crime.Tam: But Senator Frank sponsored the latest anticrime law passed by the Senate.Alba: If Senator Frank sponsored it, it can’t be a very strong anticrime law.Which of the following identifies the most serious logical flaw in Alba’s reasoning?

(A) The facts she presents do not support her conclusion that Senator Frank is soft on crime.
(B) She assumes without proof that crime is the most important issue in the upcoming election.
(C) She argues in a circle, using an unsupported assertion to dismiss conflicting evidence.
(D) She attacks Senator Frank on personal grounds rather than on he merit as a political leader.
(E) In deciding not to vote for Senator Frank, she fails to consider issues other than crime.

In the years since the city of London imposed strict air-pollution regulations on local industry, the number of bird species seen in and around London has increased dramatically. Similar air-pollution rules should be imposed in other major cities. Each of the following is an assumption made in the argument above EXCEPT:

(A) In most major cities, air-pollution problems are caused almost entirely by local industry.
(B) Air-pollution regulations on industry have a significant impact on the quality of the air.
(C) The air-pollution problems of other major cities are basically similar to those once suffered by London.
(D) An increase in the number of bird species in and around a city is desirable.
(E) The increased sightings of bird species in and around London reflect an actual increase in the number of species in the area.

The upcoming presidential election in the West African republic of Ganelon is of grave concern to the U.S. State Department. Ganelon presently has strong political and military ties to the United States. However, the Socialist party is widely expected to win the election, leading to fears that Ganelon will soon break away from the pro-American bloc and adopt a nonaligned or openly anti-American stance.
Which of the following is an assumption made in the passage above?

(A) A Socialist party government in Ganelon is more likely to oppose the United States than is a non-Socialist party government.
(B) The people of the United States recognize their nation’s interest in the political stability of West Africa.
(C) A weakening of U.S. political ties with Ganelon could have serious consequences for U.S. relations with other African nations.
(D) The Socialist party leaders in Ganelon believe that their nation’s interests would best be served by an alliance with anti-American forces.
(E) The Socialist party will win the upcoming election in Ganelon.

A law requiring companies to offer employees unpaid time off to care for their children will harm the economic competitiveness of our nation’s businesses. Companies must be free to set their own employment policies without mandated parental-leave regulations. Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion of the argument above?

(A) A parental-leave law will serve to strengthen the family as a social institution in this country.
(B) Many businesses in this country already offer employees some form of parental leave.
(C) Some of the countries with the most economically competitive businesses have strong parental-leave regulations.
(D) Only companies with one hundred or more employees would be subject to the proposed parental-leave law.
(E) In most polls, a majority of citizens say they favor passage of a parental-leave law.

Studies of fatal automobile accidents reveal that, in the majority of cases in which one occupant of an automobile is killed while another survives, it is the passenger, not the driver, who is killed. It is ironic that the innocent passenger should suffer for the driver’s carelessness, while the driver often suffers only minor injuries or none at all. Which of the following is an assumption underlying the reasoning in the passage above?

(A) In most fatal automobile accidents, the driver of a car in which an occupant is killed is at fault.
(B) Drivers of automobiles are rarely killed in auto accidents.
(C) Most deaths in fatal automobile accidents are suffered by occupants of cars rather than by
pedestrians.
(D) Auto safety experts should increase their efforts to provide protection for those in the passenger seats of automobiles.
(E) Automobile passengers sometimes play a contributing role in causing auto accidents.

Are you still reading the other newspaper in town? Did you know that the Daily Bugle is owned by an out-of-town business syndicate that couldn’t care less about the people of Gotham City? Read the Daily Clarion, the only real voice of the people of Gotham City! Which of the following most directly refutes the argument raised in the advertisement above?

(A) Over half of the advertising revenues of the Daily Clarion come from firms whose headquarters are located outside of Gotham City.
(B) The Daily Clarion usually devotes more of its pages to out-of-town news than does the Daily Bugle.
(C) Nearly 40 percent of the readers of the Daily Clarion reside outside the limits of Gotham City.
(D) The editor-in-chief and all the other members of the editorial staff of the Daily Bugle have lived and worked in Gotham City for ten years or more.
(E) The Daily Bugle has been published in Gotham City for a longer time than has the Daily Clarion.