Prep2012-Pack1-CR-053 VCR07570 Hard
The technological conservatism of bicycle manufacturers is a reflection of the kinds of demand they are trying to meet. The only cyclists seriously interested in innovation and willing to pay for it are bicycle racers. Therefore, innovation in bicycle technology is limited by what authorities will accept as standard for purposes of competition in bicycle races.
Which of the following is an assumption made in drawing the conclusion above?
A. The market for cheap, traditional bicycles cannot expand unless the market for high-performance competition bicycles expands.
B. High-performance bicycles are likely to be improved more as a result of technological innovations developed in small workshops than as a result of technological innovations developed in major manufacturing concerns.
C. Bicycle racers do not generate a strong demand for innovations that fall outside what is officially recognized as standard for purposes of competition.
D. The technological conservatism of bicycle manufacturers results primarily from their desire to manufacture a product that can be sold without being altered to suit different national markets.
E. The authorities who set standards for high-performance bicycle racing do not keep informed about innovative bicycle design.
Prep2012-Pack1-CR-054 VCR14019 Hard
In a study conducted in Canada, servers in various restaurants wrote “Thank you" on randomly selected bills before presenting the bills to their customers. lips on these bills were an average of three percentage points higher than tips on bills without the message. Therefore, if servers in Canada regularly wrote “Thank you” on restaurant their average income from tips would be significantly higher than it otherwise would have been.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument relies?
A. The “Thank you" messages would have the same impact on regular patrons of a restaurant as they would on occasional patrons of the same restaurant.
B. Regularly seeing “Thank you" written on their bills would not lead restaurant patrons to revert to their earlier tipping habits.
C. The written “Thank you" reminds restaurant patrons that tips constitute a significant part of the income of many food servers.
D. The rate at which people tip food servers in Canada does not vary with how expensive a restaurant is.
E. Virtually all patrons of the Canadian restaurants in the study who were given a bill with “Thank you” written on it left a larger tip than they otherwise would have.
Prep2012-Pack1-CR-055 VCR07635 Hard
Correctly measuring the productivity of service workers is complex. Consider, for example, postal workers: they are often said to be more productive if more letters are delivered per postal worker. But is this really true? What if more
letters are lost or delayed per worker at the same time that more are delivered?
The objection implied above to the productivity measure described is based on doubts about the truth of which of the following statements?
A. Postal workers are representative of service workers in general.
B. The delivery of letters is the primary activity of the postal service.
C. Productivity should be ascribed to categories of workers, not to individuals.
D. The quality of services rendered can appropriately be ignored in computing productivity.
E. The number of letters delivered is relevant to measuring the productivity of postal workers.
