Time 30 minutes 20 Questions
1. Below is an excerpt from a letter that was sent by the chairman of a corporation to the stockholders.A number of charges have been raised against me, some serious, some trivial. Individuals seeking to control the corporation for their own purposes have demanded my resignation. Remember that no court of law in any state has found me guilty of any criminal offense whatsoever. In the American tradition, as you know, an individual is considered innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, as the corporation’s unbroken six-year record of growth will show, my conduct of my official duties as chairman has only helped enhance the success of the corporation, and so benefited every stockholder.Which of the following can be properly inferred from the excerpt?
(A) The chairman believes that all those who have demanded his resignation are motivated by desire to control the corporation for their own purposes.
(B) Any misdeeds that the chairman may have committed were motivated by his desire to enhance the success of the corporation.
(C) The chairman is innocent of any criminal offense.
(D) The corporation has expanded steadily over the past six years.
(E) Any legal proceedings against the chairman have resulted in his acquittal.
2. 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.
3. Which of the following best completes the passage below?In opposing government regulation of business, conservatives often appeal to the Jeffersonian ideal of limited government, expressing the wish that government would “get off the backs of the American people.” Yet, paradoxically, many of these same conservatives address questions of private morality, such as those dealing with sexual behavior, by calling for______
(A) a return to the restrictive sexual morality of the Victorian era
(B) a strengthening of the role of the family in setting moral norms for society
(C) a limitation on the amount of sexually provocative material appearing in books, motives, and television shows
(D) greater freedom for individuals to choose their own way of handling sexual issues
(E) an increased governmental role in the regulation and control of private sexual behavior
Questions 4-5 are based on the following:
In an experiment, two different types of recorded music were played for neonates in adjacent nurseries in a hospital. In nursery A, classical music was played; in nursery B, rock music was played. After two weeks, it was found that the babies in nursery A cried less, suffered fewer minor ailments, and gained more weight than did the babies in nursery B.
4. In evaluating the validity of the conclusion suggested by the experiment above, it would be most important to know which of the following?
(A) The musical preferences of the parents of the two groups of newborns
(B) Whether the newborns in both nurseries were equally healthy and happy at the start of the experiment
(C) Whether loud rock music can damage the hearing of newborns
(D) What the average weight of the neonates was before and after the experiment
(E) Whether the music was played in the nurseries at all times or only at certain times
5. Which of the following additional experimental data would support the hypothesis that classical music is beneficial to the development of newborn?
(A) The neonates in a nursery where no music was played fared better than those in nursery B.
(B) Nursery A contained 15 percent more premature babies than nursery B.
(C) The newborns in nursery A cried less, suffered fewer minor ailments, and gained more weight than did newborns in a nursery with no music.
(D) The music played in nursery A was louder than that played in nursery B.
(E) The ratio of nurses to newborns in nursery B was 1 to 4; in nursery A, it was 1 to 6.
6. The ancient city of Cephesa was not buried by an eruption of Mt. Amnos in A.D. 310, as some believe. The eruption in the year 310 damaged the city, but it did not destroy it. Cephesa survived for another century before it finally met its destruction in another eruption around A.D. 415.Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the author’s claim that the city of Cephesa was not buried by the eruption of Mt. Amnos in A.D. 310?
(A) The city of Cephesa is mentioned in a historical work known to have been written in A.D. 400.
(B) Coins bearing the image of an emperor who lived around A.D. 410 have been discovered in the ruins of Cephesa, which were preserved by the cinders and ashes that buried the city.
(C) Geological evidence shows that the eruption of Mt. Amnos in A.D. 415 deposited a 10-foot-thick layer of lava on the city of Cephesa.
(D) Artworks from the city of Cephesa have been found in the ruins of another city known to have been destroyed in A.D. 420.
(E) A historical work written in A.D. 430 refers to the eruption of Mt. Amnos in A.D. 415.
7. June is taller than Kristin.
Letty is taller than Maria.
Maria is shorter than Nancy.
Kristin and Nancy are exactly the same height.
If the information above is true, which of the following must also be true?
(A) Letty is taller than Nancy.
(B) Letty is taller than June.
(C) Kristin is shorter than Letty.
(D) June is taller than Maria.
(E) Kristin is shorter than Maria.
8. Current farm policy is institutionalized penalization of consumers. It increases food prices for middle- and low-income families and costs the taxpayer billions of dollars a year.Which of the following statements, if true, would provide support for the author’s claims above?
I. Farm subsidies amount to roughly $20 billion a year in federal payouts and $12 billion more in higher food prices.
II. According to a study by the Department of Agriculture, each $1 of benefits provided to farmers for ethanol production costs consumers and taxpayers $4.
III. The average full-time farmers have an average net worth of over $300,000.
(A) I only
(B) II only
(C) III only
(D) I and II only
(E) I, II, and III
9. Reva: Using extraneous incentives to get teenagers to change their attitude toward school and schoolwork won’t work. Take the program in West Virginia, for instance, where they tried to reduce their dropout rate by revoking the driving licenses of kids who left school. The program failed miserably.Anne: It’s true that the West Virginia program failed, but many schools have devised incentive programs that have been very successful in improving attendance and reducing discipline problems.According to Anne, the weak point in Reva’s claim is that it
(A) fails to consider the possibility that the majority of potential dropouts in West Virginia do not have driving licenses
(B) doesn’t provide any exact figures for the dropout rate in West Virginia before and during the program
(C) ignores a substantial body of evidence showing that parents and employers have been using extrinsic incentives with positive results for years
(D) assumes that a positive incentive—a prize or a reward—will be no more effective than a negative incentive, like the revoking of a driving license
(E) is based on a single example, the incentive program in West Virginia, which may not be typical
10. In many surveys, American consumers have expressed a willingness to spend up to 10 percent more for products that are ecologically sound. Encouraged by such surveys, Bleach-O Corporation promoted a new laundry detergent, Bleach-O Green, as safer for the environment. Bleach-O Green cost 5 percent more than typical detergents. After one year, Bleach-O Green had failed to capture a significant share of the detergent market and was withdrawn from sale.Which of the following questions is LEAST likely to be relevant in determining the reasons for the failure of Bleach-O Green?
(A) How effective as a detergent was Bleach-O Green?
(B) How many other detergents on the market were promoted as safe for the environment?
(C) How much more did Bleach-O Green cost to manufacture than ordinary detergents?
(D) To what extent did consumers accept the validity of Bleach-O Green advertised and promoted to consumers?
(E) How effectively was Bleach-O Green advertised and promoted to consumers?
