54. telephone companies are promoting "voice mail" as an alternative to the answering machine. by recording messages from callers when a subscriber does not have access to his or her telephone, voice mail provides a service similar to that of an answering machine. the companies promoting this service argue that it will soon make answering machines obsolete, since it is much more convenient, more flexible, and less expensive than an answering machine.
which one of the following, if true, most calls into question the argument made by the companies promoting voice mail?
(a) unlike calls made to owners of answering machines, all telephone calls made to voice-mail subscribers are completed, even if the line called is in use at the time of the call.
(b) the surge in sales of answering machines occurred shortly after they were first introduced to the electronics market.
(c) once a telephone customer decides to subscribe to voice mail, that customer can cancel the service at any time.
(d) answering machines enable the customer to hear who is calling before the customer decides whether to answer the telephone, a service voice mail does not provide.
(e) the number of messages a telephone answering machine can record is limited by the length of the magnetic tape on which calls are recorded
questions 55-56
the simple facts are these: the number of people killed each year by bears is about the same as the number of people killed by lightning of golf courses. and the number of people killed by lightning on golf courses each year is about the same as the number of people electrocuted by electric blenders. all the horrible myths and gruesome stories aside, therefore a grizzly bear is in fact about as dangerous as an electric blender or a game of golf.
55. which one of the following is an assumption that the author relies upon in the passage?
(a) most incidents involving grizzly bears are fatal.
(b) grizzly bears are no longer the danger they once were.
(c) the number of fatalities per year is an adequate indication of something's dangerousness.
(d) a golf course is a particularly dangerous place to be in a thunderstorm.
(e) something is dangerous only if it results in death in the majority of cases.
56. which one of the following, if true, would most effectively undermine the author's argument?
(a) although the number of people killed by lightning on golf courses each year is very small, the total number of lightning fatalities is many times greater.
(b) electric blenders are among the safest housed hold appliances; were the author to compare fatalities from electrical appliances in general, she would get a much higher figure.
(c) most people would rather take their chances with benders and golf games than with grizzly bears.
(d) bears in general——including black, brown, and cinnamon bears, as well as grizzly bears——kill many more people than do electric blenders.
(e) statistics show that the number of times people use electric blenders each year exceeds the number of times people play golf each year, which in turn far exceeds the number of contacts people have with grizzly bears each year.
