5.In several cities, the government is going ahead with ambitious construction projects despite the high office vacancy rates in those cities. The vacant offices, though available for leasing, unfortunately do not meet the requirements for the facilities needed, such as court houses and laboratories. The government, therefore, is not guilty of any fiscal wastefulness.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument above depends?
(A) Adaptation of vacant office space to meet the government’s requirements, if possible, would not make leasing such office space a more cost-effective alternative to new construction.
(B) The government prefers leasing facilities to owning them in cases where the two alternatives are equally cost-effective.
(C) If facilities available for leasing come very close to meeting the government’s requirements for facilities the government needs, the government can relax its own requirements slightly and consider those facilities in compliance.
(D) The government’s construction projects would not on being completed, add to the stock of facilities available for leasing in the cities concerned.(A)
(E) Before embarking on any major construction project, the government is required by law to establish beyond any reasonable doubt that there are no alternatives that are most cost-effective.
6.Potato cyst nematodes are a pest of potato crops. The nematodes can lie dormant for several years in their cysts, which are protective capsules, and do not emerge except in the presence of chemicals emitted by potato roots. A company that has identified the relevant chemicals is planning to market them to potato farmers to spread on their fields when no potatoes are planted; any nematodes that emerge will soon starve to death.
Which of the following, if true, best supports the claim that the company’s plan will be successful?
(A) Nematodes that have emerged from their cysts can be killed by ordinary pesticides.
(B) The only part of a potato plant that a nematode eats is the roots.
(C) Some bacteria commonly present in the roots of potatoes digest the chemicals that cause the nematodes to emerge from their cysts.
(D) Trials have shown that spreading even minute quantities of the chemicals on potato fields caused nine-tenths of the nematodes present to emerge from their cysts.(D)
(E) The chemicals that cause the nematodes to emerge from their cysts are not emitted all the time the potato plant is growing.
7.It is better for the environment if as much of all packaging as possible is made from materials that are biodegradable in landfills. Therefore, it is always a change for the worse to replace packaging made from paper or cardboard with packaging made from plastics that are not biodegradable in landfills.
Which of the following, if true, constitutes the strongest objection to the argument above?
(A) The paper and cardboard used in packaging are usually not biodegradable in landfills.
(B) Some plastic used in packaging is biodegradable in landfills.
(C) In many landfills, a significant proportion of space is taken up by materials other than discarded packaging materials.
(D) It is impossible to avoid entirely the use of packaging materials that are not biodegradable in landfills.(A)
(E) Sometimes, in packaging an item, plastics that are not biodegradable in landfills are combined with cardboard.
8.Any serious policy discussion about acceptable levels of risk in connection with explosions is not well served if the participants fail to use the word “explosion” and use the phrase “energetic disassembly” instead. In fact, the word “explosion” elicits desirable reactions, such as a heightened level of attention, whereas the substitute phrase does not. Therefore, of the two terms, “explosion” is the one that should be used throughout discussions of this sort.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument above depends?
(A) In the kind of discussion at issue, the advantages of desirable reactions to the term “explosion” outweigh the drawbacks, if any, arising from undesirable reactions to that term.
(B) The phrase “energetic disassembly” has not so far been used as a substitute for the word “explosion” in the kind of discussion at issue.
(C) In any serious policy discussion, what is said by the participants is more important than how it is put into words.
(D) The only reason that people would have for using “energetic disassembly” in place of “explosion” is to render impossible any serious policy discussion concerning explosions.(A)
(E) The phrase “energetic disassembly” is not necessarily out of place in describing a controlled rather than an accidental explosion.
9.Mannis Corporation’s archival records are stored in an obsolete format that is accessible only by its current computer system; thus they are inaccessible when that system is not functioning properly. In order to avoid the possibility of losing access to their archival records in the case of computer malfunction, Mannis plans to replace its current computer system with a new system that stores records in a format that is accessible to several different systems.
The answer to which of the following questions would be most helpful in evaluating the effectiveness of the plan as a means of retaining access to the archival records?
(A) Will the new computer system require fewer operators than the current system requires?
(B) Has Mannis Corporation always stored its archival records in a computerized format?
(C) Will the new computer system that Mannis plans ensure greater security for the records stored than does Mannis’ current system?
(D) Will Mannis’ current collection of archival records be readily transferable to the new computer system?(D)
(E) Will the new computer system be able to perform many more tasks than the current system is able to perform?
