Weaken
WEAKEN 看原文：找出结论和推出该结论的前提。特别注意结论的特殊性和具体性。 找答案：用结论的具体性去区分有关无关，并结合TEST。对于特殊类，先预测出答案，用此预测去找答案 TEST：问自己，是否该答案使作者再考虑他的观点或迫使作者做出反应或原文该前提能证明该结论吗。 几种特殊类型： 原文前提和结论关系不密切：正确选项直接WEAKEN结论 因果型结论：即原文给出两件事，然后得出结论说是一件事（因）导致另一件事（果）。
WEAKEN该结论的方法包括：
A 是其他原因或可能导致该结果
B 割断因果：或有因无果或有果无因
C 因果颠倒了
D 显示因果关系的资料不准确。
条件型结论：结论带条件（即为充分必要）。WEAKEN的方法显示充分条件成立，必要条件可以不成立。或举反例，或提供有关信息。 原文是类比：WEAKEN方式为两者本质不同 调查：有效性受怀疑（被调查的没代表性等）
1.The average life expectancy for the United States population as a whole is 73.9 years, but children born in Hawaii will live an average of 77 years, and those born in Louisiana, 71.7 years. If a newlywed couple from Louisiana were to begin their family in Hawaii, therefore, their children would be expected to live longer than would be the case if the family remained in Louisiana. Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion drawn in the passage? A. Insurance company statisticians do not believe that moving to Hawaii will significantly lengthen the average Louisianan’s life. B. The governor of Louisiana has falsely alleged that statistics for his state are inaccurate. C. The longevity ascribed to Hawaii’s current population is attributable mostly to genetically determined factors. D. Thirty percent of all Louisianans can expect to live longer than 77 years. E. Most of the Hawaiian Islands have levels of air pollution well below the national average for the United States.
2. Insurance Company X is considering issuing a new policy to cover services required by elderly people who suffer from diseases that afflict the elderly. Premiums for the policy must be low enough to attract customers. Therefore, Company X is concerned that the income from the policies would not be sufficient to pay for the claims that would be made. Which of the following strategies would be most likely to minimize Company X’s losses on the policies? A. Attracting middle-aged customers unlikely to submit claims for benefits for many years. B. Insuring only those individuals who did not suffer any serious diseases as children C. Including a greater number of services in the policy than are included in other policies of lower cost D. Insuring only those individuals who were rejected by other companies for similar policies E. Insuring only those individuals who are wealthy enough to pay for the medical services
3. A program instituted in a particular state allows parents to prepay their children’s future college tuition at current rates. The program then pays the tuition annually for the child at any of the state’s public colleges in which the child enrolls. Parents should participate in the program as a means of decreasing the cost for their children’s college education. Which of the following, if true, is the most appropriate reason for parents NOT to participate in the program? A. the parents are unsure about which public college in the state the child will attend. B. The amount of money accumulated by putting the prepayment funds in an interest-bearing account today will be greater than the total cost of tuition for any of the public colleges when the child enrolls. C. The annual cost of tuition at the state’s public colleges is expected to increase at a faster rate than the annual increase in the cost of living. D. Some of the state’s public colleges are contemplating large increases in tuition next year. E. The prepayment plan would not cover the cost of room and board at any of the state’s public colleges.
4. The ice on the front windshield of the car had formed when moisture condensed during the night. The ice melted quickly after the car was warmed up the next morning because the defrosting vent, which blows on the front windshield, was turned on full force. Which of the following, if true, most seriously jeopardizes the validity of the explanation for the speed with which the ice melted? A. The side windows had no ice condensation on them B. Even though no attempt was made to defrost the back window, the ice there melted at the same rate as did the ice on the front windshield. C. The speed at which ice on a window melts increases as the temperature of the air blown on the window increases D. The warm air from the defrosting vent for the front windshield cools rapidly as it dissipates throughout the rest of the car. E. The defrosting vent operates efficiently even when the heater, which blows warm air toward the feet or faces of the driver and passengers, is on.
5. A conservation group in the United States is trying to change the long-standing image of bats as frightening creatures. The group contends that bats are feared and persecuted solely because they are shy animals that are active only at night. Which of the following, if true, would cast the most serious doubt on the accuracy of the group’s contention? A. Bats are steadily losing natural roosting places such as caves and hollow trees and are thus turning to more developed areas for roosting. B. Bats are the chief consumers of nocturnal insects and thus can help make their hunting territory more pleasant for humans. C. Bats are regarded as frightening creatures not only in the United States but also in Europe, Africa, and South America. D. Raccoons and owls are shy and active only at night; yet they are not generally feared and persecuted. E. People know more about the behavior of other greatly feared animal species, such as lions, alligators, and greatly feared animal species, such as lions, alligators, and snakes, than they do about the behavior of bats.
6. The fewer restrictions there are on the advertising of legal services, the more lawyers there are who advertise their services, and the lawyers who advertise a specific service usually charge less for that service than lawyers who do not advertise. Therefore, if the state removes any of its current restrictions, such as the one against advertisements that do not specify fee arrangements, overall consumer legal costs will be lower than if the state retains its current restrictions.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument concerning overall consumer legal costs? A. The state has recently removed some other restrictions that had limited the advertising of legal services. B. The state is unlikely to remove all of the restrictions that apply solely to the advertising of legal services. C. Lawyers who do not advertise generally provide legal services of the same quality as those provided by lawyers who do advertise. D. Most lawyers who now specify fee arrangements in their advertisements would continue to do so even if the specification were not required. E. Most lawyers who advertise specific services do not lower their fees for those services when they begin to advertise.
7. Opponents of laws that require automobile drivers and passengers to wear seat belts argue that in a free society people have the right to take risks as long as the people do not harm other as a result of taking the risks. As a result, they conclude that it should be each person’s decision whether or not to wear a seat belt. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the conclusion drawn above? A. Many new cars are built with seat belts that automatically fasten when someone sits in the front seat. B. Automobile insurance rates for all automobile owners are higher because of the need to pay for the increased injuries or deaths of people not wearing seat belts. C. Passengers in airplanes are required to wear seat belts during takeoffs and landings. D. The rate of automobile fatalities in states that do not have mandatory seat belt laws is greater than the rate of fatalities in states that do have such laws. E. In automobile accidents, a greater number of passengers who do not wear seat belts are injured than are passengers who do wear seat belts.
8. A proposed ordinance requires the installation in new homes of sprinklers automatically triggered by the presence of a fire. However, a home builder argued that because more than ninety percent of residential fires are extinguished by a household member, residential sprinklers would only marginally decrease property damage caused by residential fires.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the home builder’s argument? A. most individuals have no formal training in how to extinguish fires. B. Since new homes are only a tiny percentage of available housing in the city, the new ordinance would be extremely narrow in scope. C. The installation of smoke detectors in new residences costs significantly less than the installation of sprinklers. D. In the city where the ordinance was proposed, the average time required by the fire department to respond to a fire was less than the national average. E. The largest proportion of property damage that results from residential fires is caused by fires that start when no household member is present.
9. Red blood cells in which the malarial-fever parasite resides are eliminated from a person’s body after 120 days. Because the parasite cannot travel to a new generation of red blood cells, any fever that develops in a person more than 120 days after that person has moved to a malaria-free region is not due to the malarial parasite. Which is the following, if true, most seriously weakens the conclusion above? A. The fever caused by the malarial parasite may resemble the fever caused by flu viruses. B. The anopheles mosquito, which is the principal insect carrier of the malarial parasite, has been eradicated in many parts of the world. C. Many malarial symptoms other than the fever, which can be suppressed with anti-malarial medication, can reappear within 120 days after the medication is discontinued. D. In some cases, the parasite that causes malarial fever travels to cells of the spleen, which are less frequently eliminated from a person’s body than are red blood cells. E. In any region infested with malaria-carrying mosquitoes, there are individuals who appear to be immune to malaria.
10. The number of people diagnosed as having a certain intestinal disease has dropped significantly in a rural county this year, as compared to last year. Health officials attribute this decrease entirely to improved sanitary conditions at water-treatment plants, which made for cleaner water this year and thus reduced the incidence of the disease. Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the health officials’ explanation for the lower incidence of the disease? A. Many new water-treatment plants have been built in the last five years in the rural county. B. Bottled spring water has not been consumed in significantly different quantities by people diagnosed as having the intestinal disease, as compared to people who did not contract the disease. C. Because of a new diagnostic technique, many people who until this year would have been diagnosed as having the intestinal disease are now correctly diagnosed as suffering from intestinal ulcers. D. Because of medical advances this year, far fewer people who contract the intestinal disease will develop severe cases of the disease. C E. The water in the rural county was brought up to the sanitary standards of the water in neighboring counties ten years ago. . 11. Some who favor putting governmental enterprises into private hands suggest that conservation objectives would in general be better served if private environmental groups were put in charge of operating and financing the national park system, which is now run by the government. Which of the following, assuming that it is a realistic possibility, argues most strongly against the suggestion above? A. Those seeking to abolish all restrictions on exploiting the natural resources of the parks might join the private environmental groups as members and eventually take over their leadership. B. Private environmental groups might not always agree on the best ways to achieve conservation objectives. C. If they wished to extend the park system, the private environmental groups might have to seek contributions from major donors and general public. D. There might be competition among private environmental groups for control of certain park areas. A E. Some endangered species, such as the California condor, might die out despite the best efforts of the private environmental groups, even if those groups are not hampered by insufficient resources.
12. Most archaeologists have held that people first reached the Americas less than 20,000 years ago by crossing a land bridge into North America. But recent discoveries of human shelters in South America dating from 32,000 years ago have led researchers to speculate that people arrived in South America first, after voyaging across the Pacific, and then spread northward. Which of the following, if it were discovered, would be pertinent evidence against the speculation above? A. A rock shelter near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, contains evidence of use by human beings 19,000 years ago. B. Some North American sites of human habitation predate any sites found in South America. C. The climate is warmer at the 32,000-year-old South American site than at the oldest known North American site. D. The site in South America that was occupied 32,000 years ago was continuously occupied until 6,000 years ago. E. The last Ice Age, between 11,500 and 20,000 years ago, considerably lowered worldwide sea levels.
13. Since the mayor’s publicity campaign for Greenville’s bus service began six months ago, morning automobile traffic into the midtown area of the city has decreased seven percent. During the same period, there has been an equivalent rise in the number of persons riding buses into the midtown area. Obviously, the mayor’s publicity campaign has convinced many people to leave their cars at home and ride the bus to work. Which of the following, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion drawn above? A. Fares for all bus routes in Greenville have risen an average of five percent during the past six months. B. The mayor of Greenville rides the bus to City Hall in the city’s midtown area. C. Road reconstruction has greatly reduced the number of lanes available to commuters in major streets leading to the midtown area during the past six months. D. The number of buses entering the midtown area of Greenville during the morning hours is exactly the same now as it was one year ago. E. Surveys show that longtime bus riders are no more satisfied with the Greenville bus service than they were before the mayor’s publicity campaign began.
14. With the emergence of biotechnology companies, it was feared that they would impose silence about proprietary results on their in–house researchers and their academic consultants. This constraint, in turn, would slow the development of biological science and engineering. Which of the following, if true, would tend to weaken most seriously the prediction of scientific secrecy described above? A. Biotechnological research funded by industry has reached some conclusions that are of major scientific importance. B. When the results of scientific research are kept secret, independent researchers are unable to build on those results. C. Since the research priorities of biotechnology companies are not the same as those of academic institutions, the financial support of research by such companies distorts the research agenda. D. To enhance the companies’ standing in the scientific community, the biotechnology companies encourage employees to publish their results, especially results that are important. E. Biotechnology companies devote some of their research resources to problems that are of fundamental scientific importance and that are not expected to produce immediate practical applications.
15. Most consumers do not get much use out of the sports equipment they purchase. For example, seventeen percent of the adults in the United States own jogging shoes, but only forty-five percent of the owners jog more than once a year, and only seventeen percent jog more than once a week. Which of the following, if true, casts most doubt on the claim that most consumers get little use out of the sports equipment they purchase? (A) Joggers are most susceptible to sports injuries during the first six months in which they jog. (B) Joggers often exaggerate the frequency with which they jog in surveys designed to elicit such information. (C) Many consumers purchase jogging shoes for use in activities other than jogging. (D) Consumers who take up jogging often purchase an athletic shoe that can be used in other sports. C (E) Joggers who jog more than once a week are often active participants in other sports as well.
16. The recent decline in the value of the dollar was triggered by a prediction of slower economic growth in the coming year. But that prediction would not have adversely affected the dollar had it not been for the government’s huge budget deficit, which must therefore be decreased to prevent future currency declines. Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion about how to prevent future currency declines? (A) The government has made little attempt to reduce the budget deficit. (B) The budget deficit has not caused a slowdown in economic growth. (C) The value of the dollar declined several times in the year prior to the recent prediction of slower economic growth. (D) Before there was a large budget deficit, predictions of slower economic growth frequently caused declines in the dollar’s value. (E) When there is a large budget deficit, other events in addition to predictions of slower economic growth sometimes trigger declines in currency value.
17. The imposition of quotas limiting imported steel will not help the big American steel mills. In fact, the quotas will help “mini-mills” flourish in the United States. Those small domestic mills will take more business from the big American steel mills than would have been taken by the foreign steel mills in the absence of quotas. Which of the following, if true, would cast the most serious doubt on the claim made in the last sentence above? (A) Quality rather than price is a major factor in determining the type of steel to be used for a particular application. (B) Foreign steel mills have long produced grades of steel comparable in quality to the steel produced by the big American mills. (C) American quotas on imported goods have often induced other countries to impose similar quotas on American goods. (D) Domestic “mini-mills” consistently produce better grades of steel than do the big American mills. (E) Domestic “mini-mills” produce low-volume, specialized types of steels that are not produced by the big American steel mills.
18. A greater number of newspapers are sold in Town S than in Town T. Therefore, the citizens of Town S are better informed about major world events than are the citizens of Town T. Each of the following, if true, weakens the conclusion above EXCEPT: (A) Town S has a larger population than Town T. (B) Most citizens of Town T work in Town S and buy their newspapers there. (C) The average citizen of Town S spends less time reading newspapers than does the average citizen of Town T. (D) A weekly newspaper restricted to the coverage of local events is published in Town S. (E) The average newsstand price of newspapers sold in Town S in lower than the average price of newspapers sold in Town T.
19. A drug that is highly effective in treating many types of infection can, at present, be obtained only from the bark of the ibora, a tree that is quite rare in the wild. It takes the bark of 5,000 tree to make one kilogram of the drug. It follows, therefore, that continued production of the drug must inevitably lead to the ibora’s extinction. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above? (A) The drug made from ibora bark is dispensed to doctors from a central authority. (B) The drug made from ibora bark is expensive to produce. (C) The leaves of the ibora are used in a number of medical products. (D) The ibora can be propagated from cuttings and grown under cultivation. (E) The ibora generally grows in largely inaccessible places.
20. Shelby Industries manufactures and sells the same gauges as Jones Industries. Employee wages account for forty percent of the cost of manufacturing gauges at both Shelby Industries and Jones Industries. Shelby Industries is seeking a competitive advantage over Jones Industries. Therefore, to promote this end, Shelby Industries should lower employee wages. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above? (A) Because they make a small number of precision instruments, gauge manufacturers cannot receive volume discounts on raw materials. (B) Lowering wages would reduce the quality of employee work, and this reduced quality would lead to lowered sales. (C) Jones Industries has taken away twenty percent of Shelby Industries’ business over the last year. (D) Shelby Industries pays its employees, on average, ten percent more than does Jones Industries. (E) Many people who work for manufacturing plants live in areas in which the manufacturing plant they work for is the only industry.
21. A group of children of various ages was read stories in which people caused harm, some of those people doing so intentionally, and some accidentally. When asked about appropriate punishments for those who had caused harm, the younger children, unlike the older ones, assigned punishments that did not vary according to whether the harm was done intentionally or accidentally. Younger children, then, do not regard people’s intentions as relevant to punishment. Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion above? (A) In interpreting these stories, the listeners had to draw on a relatively mature sense of human psychology in order to tell whether harm was produced intentionally or accidentally. (B) In these stories, the severity of the harm produced was clearly stated. (C) Younger children are as likely to produce harm unintentionally as are older children. (D) The older children assigned punishment in a way that closely resembled the way adults had assigned punishment in a similar experiment. (E) The younger children assigned punishments that varied according to the severity of the harm done by the agents in the stories.
22.The program to control the entry of illegal drugs into the country was a failure in 1987. If the program had been successful, the wholesale price of most illegal drugs would not have dropped substantially in 1987. The argument in the passage would be most seriously weakened if it were true that (A) in 1987 smugglers of illegal drugs, as a group, had significantly more funds at their disposal than did the country’s customs agents (B) domestic production of illegal drugs increased substantially in 1987 (C) the author’s statements were made in order to embarrass the officials responsible for the drug-control program (D) in 1987 illegal drugs entered the country by a different set of routes than they did in 1986 (E) the country’s citizens spent substantially more money on illegal drugs in 1987 than they did in 1986.
23. Dental researchers recently discovered that tooth-brushes can become contaminated with bacterial that cause pneumonia and strep throat. They found that contamination usually occurs after toothbrushes have been used for four weeks. For that reason, people should replace their toothbrushes at least once a month. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion above? (A) The dental researchers could not discover why toothbrush contamination usually occurred only after toothbrushes had been used for four weeks. (B) The dental researchers failed to investigate contamination of toothbrushes by viruses, yeasts, and other pathogenic microorganisms. (C) The dental researchers found that among people who used toothbrushes contaminated with bacterial that cause pneumonia and strep throat, the incidence of these diseases was no higher than among people who used uncontaminated toothbrushes. (D) The dental researchers found that people who rinsed their toothbrushes thoroughly in hot water after each use were as likely to have contaminated toothbrushes as were people who only rinsed their toothbrushes hurriedly in cold water after each use. (E) The dental researchers found that, after six weeks of use, greater length of use of a toothbrush did not correlate with a higher number of bacterial being present.
24.The difficulty with the proposed high-speed train line is that a used plane can be bought for one-third the price of the train line, and the plane, which is just as fast, can fly anywhere. The train would be a fixed linear system, and we live in a world that is spreading out in all directions and in which consumers choose the free-wheel systems (cars, buses, aircraft), which do not have fixed routes. Thus a sufficient market for the train will not exist. Which of the following, if true, most severely weakens the argument presented above? (A) Cars, buses, and planes require the efforts of drivers and pilots to guide them, whereas the train will be guided mechanically. (B) Cars and buses are not nearly as fast as the high-speed train will be. (C) Planes are not a free-wheel system because they can fly only between airports, which are less convenient for consumers than the high-speed train’s stations would be.
(D) The high-speed train line cannot use currently underutilized train stations in large cities. C (E) For long trips, most people prefer to fly rather than to take ground-level transportation.
25. Biological functions of many plants and animals vary in cycles that are repeated every 24 hours. It is tempting to suppose that alteration in the intensity of incident light is the stimulus that controls these daily biological rhythms. But there is much evidence to contradict this hypothesis.
Which of the following, if known, is evidence that contradicts the hypothesis stated in lines 2-5 above? (A) Human body temperature varies throughout the day, with the maximum occurring in the late afternoon and the minimum in the morning. (B) While some animals, such as the robin, are more active during the day, others, such as mice, show greater activity at night. (C) When people move from one time zone to another, their daily biological rhythms adjust in a matter of days to the periods of sunlight and darkness in the new zone. (D) Certain single-cell plants display daily biological rhythms even when the part of the cell containing the nucleus is removed. E (E) Even when exposed to constant light intensity around the clock, some algae display rates of photosynthesis that are much greater during daylight hours than at night.
26. Although migraine headaches are believed to be caused by food allergies, putting patients on diets that eliminate those foods to which the patients have been demonstrated to have allergic migraine reactions frequently does not stop headaches. Obviously, some other cause of migraine headaches besides food allergies much exist.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion above? (A) Many common foods elicit an allergic response only after several days, making it very difficult to observe links between specific foods patients eat and headaches they develop. (B) Food allergies affect many people who never develop the symptom of migraine headaches. (C) Many patients report that the foods that cause them migraine headaches are among the foods that they most enjoy eating. (D) Very few patients have allergic migraine reactions as children live migraine-free adult lives once they have eliminated from their diets foods to which they have been demonstrated to be allergic. (E) Very rarely do food allergies cause patients to suffer a symptom more severe than that of migraine headaches.
27. Treatment for hypertension forestalls certain medical expenses by preventing strokes and heart disease. Yet any money so saved amounts to only one-fourth of the expenditures required to treat the hypertensive population. Therefore, there is no economic justification for preventive treatment for hypertension.
Which of the following, if true, is most damaging to the conclusion above? (A) The many fatal strokes and heart attacks resulting from untreated hypertension cause insignificant medical expenditures but large economic losses of other sorts. (B) The cost, per patient, of preventive treatment for hypertension would remain constant even if such treatment were instituted on a large scale. (C) In matters of health care, economic considerations should ideally not be dominant. (D) Effective prevention presupposes early diagnosis, and programs to ensure early diagnosis are costly. (E) The net savings in medical resources achieved by some preventive health measures are smaller than the net losses attributable to certain other measures of this kind.
28. Robot satellites relay important communications and identify weather patterns. Because the satellites can be repaired only in orbit, astronauts are needed to repair them. Without repairs, the satellites would eventually malfunction. Therefore, space flights carrying astronauts must continue.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument above? (A) Satellites falling from orbit because of malfunctions burn up in the atmosphere. (B) Although satellites are indispensable in the identification of weather patterns, weather forecasters also make some use of computer projections to identify weather patters. (C) The government, responding to public pressure, has decided to cut the budget for space flights and put more money into social welfare programs. (D) Repair of satellites requires heavy equipment, which adds to the amount of fuel needed to lift a spaceship carrying astronauts into orbit. (E) Technical obsolescence of robot satellites makes repairing them more costly and less practical than sending new, improved satellites into orbit.
29. Advocates of a large-scale space-defense research project conclude that it will represent a net benefit to civilian business. They say that since government-sponsored research will have civilian applications, civilian businesses will reap the rewards of government-developed technology.
Each of the following, if true, raises a consideration arguing against the conclusion above, EXCEPT: (A) The development of cost-efficient manufacturing techniques is of the highest priority for civilian business and would be neglected for civilian business and would be neglected if resources go to military projects, which do not emphasize cost efficiency. (B) Scientific and engineering talent needed by civilian business will be absorbed by the large-scale project. (C) Many civilian businesses will receive subcontracts to provide materials and products needed by the research project. (D) If government research money is devoted to the space project, it will not be available for specifically targeted needs of civilian business, where it could be more efficiently used. (E) The increase in taxes or government debt needed to finance the project will severely reduce the vitality of the civilian economy.
30. In an attempt to promote the widespread use of paper rather than plastic, and thus reduce non biodegradable waster, the council of a small town plans to ban the sale of disposable plastic goods for which substitutes made of paper exist. The council argues that since most paper is entirely biodegradable, paper goods are environmentally preferable.
Which of the following, if true, indicates that the plan to ban the sale of disposable plastic goods is ill suited to the town council’s environmental goals? (A) Although biodegradable plastic goods are now available, members of the town council believe biodegradable paper goods to be safer for the environment. (B) The paper factory at which most of the towns-people are employed plans to increase production of biodegradable paper goods. (C) After other towns enacted similar bans on the sale of plastic goods, the environmental benefits were not discernible for several years. (D) Since most townspeople prefer plastic goods to paper goods in many instances, they are likely to purchase them in neighboring towns where plastic goods are available for sale. (E) Products other than those derived from wood pulp are often used in the manufacture of paper goods that are entirely biodegradable.
31. Since the deregulation of airlines, delays at the nation’s increasingly busy airports have increased by 25 percent. To combat this problem, more of the takeoff and landing slots at the busiest airports must be allocated to commercial airlines.
Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt on the effectiveness of the solution proposed above? (A) The major causes of delays at the nation’s busiest airports are bad weather and overtaxed air traffic control equipment. (B) Since airline deregulation began, the number of airplanes in operation has increased by 25 percent. (C) Over 60 percent of the takeoff and landing slots at the nation’s busiest airports are reserved for commercial airlines. (D) After a small Midwestern airport doubled its allocation of takeoff and landing slots, the number of delays that were reported decreased by 50 percents. A (E) Since deregulation the average length of delay at the nation’s busiest airports has doubled.
32. The more frequently employees take time to exercise during working hours each week, the fewer sick days they take. Even employees who exercise only once a week during working hours take less sick time than those who do not exercise. Therefore, if companies started fitness 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 exercise during working hours occasionally fall asleep for short periods of time after they exercise. (B) Employees who are frequently absent are the least likely to cooperate with or to join a corporate fitness program. (C) Employees who exercise only once a week in their company’s fitness program usually also exercise after work. (D) Employees who exercise in their company’s fitness program use their working time no more productively than those who do not exercise. B (E) Employees who exercise during working hours take slightly longer lunch breaks than employees who do not exercise.
Questions 33 – 34 are based on the following. According to the Tristate Transportation Authority, making certain improvements to the main commuter rail line would increase ridership dramatically. The authority plans to finance these improvements over the course of five years by raising automobile tolls on the two high-way bridges along the route the rail line serves. Although the proposed improvements are indeed needed, the authority’s plan for securing the necessary funds should be rejected because it would unfairly force drivers to absorb the entire cost of something from which they receive no benefit.
33. Which of the following, if true, would cast the most doubt on the effectiveness of the authority’s plan to finance the proposed improvements by increasing bridge tolls? (A) Before the authority increases tolls on any of the area bridges, it is required by law to hold public hearings at which objections to the proposed increase can be raised. (B) Whenever bridge tolls are increased, the authority must pay a private contractor to adjust the automated toll-collecting machines. (C) Between the time a proposed toll increase is announced and the time the increase is actually put into effect, many commuters buy more tokens than usual to postpone the effects of the increase. (D) When tolls were last increased on the two bridges in question, almost 20 percent of the regular commuter traffic switched to a slightly longer alternative route that has since been improved. (E) The chairman of the authority is a member of the Tristate Automobile Club that has registered strong opposition to the proposed toll increase.
34. Which of the following, if true, would provide the authority with the strongest counter to the objection that its plan is unfair? (A) Even with the proposed toll increase, the average bridge toll in the tristate region would remain less than the tolls charged in neighboring states. (B) Any attempt to finance the improvements by raising rail fares would result in a decrease in ridership and so would be self-defeating. (C) Automobile commuters benefit from well-maintained bridges, and in the tristate region bridge maintenance is funded out of general income tax revenues to which both automobile and rail commuters contribute. (D) The roads along the route served by the rail line are highly congested and drivers benefit when commuters are diverted from congested roadways to mass transit. (E) The only alternative way of funding the proposed improvements now being considered is through a regional income tax surcharge, which would affect automobile commuters and rail commuters alike.
35. Unlike the wholesale price of raw wool, the wholesale price of raw cotton has fallen considerably in the last year. Thus, although the retail price of cotton clothing at retail clothing stores 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 raw cotton for cloth has increased during the last year. (B) The wholesale price of raw wool is typically higher than that of the same volume of raw cotton. (C) The operating costs of the average retail clothing store have remained constant during the last year. (D) Changes in retail prices always lag behind changes in wholesale prices. (E) The cost of harvesting raw cotton has increased in the last year.
36.Bank depositors in the United States are all financially protected against bank failure because the government insures all individuals' bank deposits. An economist argues that this insurance is partly responsible for the high rate of bank failures, since it removes from depositors any financial incentive to find out whether the bank that holds their money is secure against failure. If depositors were more selective, then banks would need to be secure in order to compete for depositors' money.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the economist's argument? (A) Before the government started to insure depositors against bank failure, there was a lower rate of bank failure than there is now. (B) When the government did not insure deposits, frequent bank failures occurred as a result of depositors' fears of losing money in bank failures. (C) Surveys show that a significant proportion of depositors are aware that their deposits are insured by the government. (D) There is an upper limit on the amount of an individual's deposit that the government will insure, but very few individuals' deposits exceed this limit. (E) The security of a bank against failure depends on the percentage of its assets that are loaned out and also on how much risk its loans involve.
37. Passengers must exit airplanes swiftly after accidents, since gases released following accidents are toxic to humans and often explode soon after being released. In order to prevent passenger deaths from gas inhalation, safety officials recommend that passengers be provided with smoke hoods that prevent inhalation of the gases.
Which of the following, if true, constitutes the strongest reason not to require implementation of the safety officials' recommendation? (A) Test evacuations showed that putting on the smoke hoods added considerably to the overall time it took passengers to leave the cabin. (B) Some airlines are unwilling to buy the smoke hoods because they consider them to be prohibitively expensive. (C) Although the smoke hoods protect passengers from the toxic gases, they can do nothing to prevent the gases from igniting. (D) Some experienced flyers fail to pay attention to the safety instructions given on every commercial flight before takeoff. (E) In many airplane accidents, passengers who were able to reach emergency exits were overcome by toxic gases before they could exit the airplane.
38. Because postage rates are rising, Home Decorator magazine plans to maximize its profits by reducing by one half the number of issues it publishes each year. The quality of articles, the number of articles published per year, and the subscription price will not change. Market research shows that neither subscribers nor advertisers will be lost if the magazine's plan is instituted.
Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest evidence that the magazine's profits are likely to decline if the plan is instituted? (A) With the new postage rates, a typical issue under the proposed plan would cost about one-third more to mail than a typical current issue would. (B) The majority of the magazine's subscribers are less concerned about a possible reduction in the quantity of the magazine's articles than about a possible loss of the current high quality of its articles. (C) Many of the magazine's long-time subscribers would continue their subscriptions even if the subscription price were increased. (D) Most of the advertisers that purchase advertising space in the magazine will continue to spend the same amount on advertising per issue as they have in the past. (E) Production costs for the magazine are expected to remain stable.
39. A study of marital relationships in which one partner's sleeping and waking cycles differ from those of the other partner reveals that such couples share fewer activities with each other and have more violent arguments than do couples in a relationship in which both partners follow the same sleeping and waking patterns. Thus, mismatched sleeping and waking cycles can seriously jeopardize a marriage.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above? (A) Married couples in which both spouses follow the same sleeping and waking patterns also occasionally have arguments than can jeopardize the couple's marriage. (B) The sleeping and waking cycles of individuals tend to vary from season to season. (C) The individuals who have sleeping and waking cycles that differ significantly from those of their spouses tend to argue little with colleagues at work. (D) People in unhappy marriages have been found to express hostility by adopting a different sleeping and waking cycle from that of their spouses. (E) According to a recent study, most people's sleeping and waking cycles can be controlled and modified easily.
40. In the past most airline companies minimized aircraft weight to minimize fuel costs. The safest airline seats were heavy, and airlines equipped their planes with few of these seats. This year the seat that has sold best to airlines has been the safest one—a clear indication that airlines are assigning a higher priority to safe seating than to minimizing fuel costs.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above? (A) Last year’s best-selling airline seat was not the safest airline seat on the market. (B) No airline company has announced that it would be making safe seating a higher priority this year. (C) The price of fuel was higher this year than it had been in most of the years when the safest airline seats sold poorly. (D) Because of increases in the cost of materials, all airline seats were more expensive to manufacture this year than in any previous year. (E) Because of technological innovations, the safest airline seat on the market this year weighed less than most other airline seats on the market.
41. Division manager: I want to replace the Microton computers in my division with Vitech computers. General manager: Why? Division manager: It costs 28 percent less to train new staff on the Vitech. General manager: But that is not a good enough reason. We can simply hire only people who already know how to use the Microton computer.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the general manager’s objection to the replacement of Microton computers with Vitechs? (A) Currently all employees in the company are required to attend workshops on how to use Microton computers in new applications. (B) Once employees learn how to use a computer, they tend to change employers more readily than before. (C) Experienced users of Microton computers command much higher salaries than do prospective employees who have no experience in the use of computers. (D) The average productivity of employees in the general manager’s company is below the average productivity of the employees of its competitors. (E) The high costs of replacement parts make Vitech computers more expensive to maintain than Microton computers.
42. An airplane engine manufacturer developed a new engine model with safety features lacking in the earlier model, which was still being manufactured. During the first year that both were sold, the earlier model far outsold the new model; the manufacturer thus concluded that safety was not the customers’ primary consideration.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the manufacturer’s conclusion? (A) Both private plane owners and commercial airlines buy engines from this airplane engine manufacturer. (B) Many customers consider earlier engine models better safety risks than new engine models, since more is usually known about the safety of the earlier models. (C) Many customers of this airplane engine manufacturer also bought airplane engines from manufacturers who did not provide additional safety features in their newer models. (D) The newer engine model can be used in all planes in which the earlier engine model can be used. (E) There was no significant difference in price between the newer engine model and the earlier engine model.
43. Firms adopting “profit-related-pay” (PRP) contracts pay wages at levels that vary with the firm’s profits. In the metalworking industry last year, firms with PRP contracts in place showed productivity per worker on average 13 percent higher than that of their competitors who used more traditional contracts.
If, on the basis of the evidence above, it is argued that PRP contracts increase worker productivity, which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken that argument? (A) Results similar to those cited for the metal-working industry have been found in other industries where PRP contracts are used. (B) Under PRP contracts costs other than labor costs, such as plant, machinery, and energy, make up an increased proportion of the total cost of each unit of output. (C) Because introducing PRP contracts greatly changes individual workers’ relationships to the firm, negotiating the introduction of PRP contracts in complex and time consuming. (D) Many firms in the metalworking industry have modernized production equipment in the last five years, and most of these introduced PRP contracts at the same time. (E) In firms in the metalworking industry where PRP contracts are in place, the average take-home pay is 15 percent higher than it is in those firms where workers have more traditional contracts.
44. Crops can be traded on the futures market before they are harvested. If a poor corn harvest is predicted, prices of corn futures rise; if a bountiful corn harvest is predicted, prices of corn futures fall. This morning meteorologists are predicting much-needed rain for the corn-growing region starting tomorrow. Therefore, since adequate moisture is essential for the current crop’s survival, prices of corn futures will fall sharply today.
Which of the following, if true, most weakens the argument above? (A) Corn that does not receive adequate moisture during its critical pollination stage will not produce a bountiful harvest. (B) Futures prices for corn have been fluctuating more dramatically this season than last season. (C) The rain that meteorologists predicted for tomorrow is expected to extend well beyond the corn-growing region. (D) Agriculture experts announced today that a disease that has devastated some of the corn crop will spread widely before the end of the growing season. (E) Most people who trade in corn futures rarely take physical possession of the corn they trade.
45. Start-up companies financed by venture capitalist have a much lower failure rate than companies financed by other means. Source of financing, therefore, must be a more important causative factor in the success of a start-up company than are such factors as the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur, the quality of strategic planning, or the management structure of the company.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above? (A) Venture capitalists tend to be more responsive than other sources of financing to changes in a start-up company’s financial needs. (B) The strategic planning of a start-up company is a less important factor in the long-term success of the company than are the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur. (C) More than half of all new companies fall within five years. (D) The management structures of start-up companies are generally less formal than the management structures of ongoing businesses. (E) Venture capitalists base their decisions to fund start-up companies on such factors as the characteristics of the entrepreneur and quality of strategic planning of the company.
46. Companies O and P each have the same number of employees who work the same number of hours per week. According to records maintained by each company, the employees of Company O had fewer job-related accidents last year than did the employees of Company P. Therefore, employees of Company O are less likely to have job-related accidents than are employees of Company P.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion above? (A) The employees of Company P lost more time at work due to job-related accidents than did the employees of Company O. (B) Company P considered more types of accidents to be job-related than did Company O. (C) The employees of Company P were sick more often than were the employees of Company O. (D) Several employees of Company O each had more than one job-related accident. (E) The majority of job-related accidents at Company O involved a single machine.
47. In comparison to the standard typewriter keyboard, the EFCO keyboard, which places the most-used keys nearest the typist’s strongest fingers, allows faster typing and results in less fatigue, Therefore, replacement of standard keyboards with the EFCO keyboard will result in an immediate reduction of typing costs.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion drawn above? (A) People who use both standard and EFCO keyboards report greater difficulty in the transition from the EFCO keyboard to the standard keyboard than in the transition from the standard keyboard to the EFCO keyboard. (B) EFCO keyboards are no more expensive to manufacture than are standard keyboards and require less frequent repair than do standard keyboards. (C) The number of businesses and government agencies that use EFCO keyboards is increasing each year. (D) The more training and experience an employee has had with the standard keyboard, the more costly it is to train that employee to use the EFCO keyboard. (E) Novice typists can learn to use the EFCO keyboard in about the same amount of time it takes them to learn to use the standard keyboard.
48. An overly centralized economy, not the changes in the climate, is responsible for the poor agricultural production in Country X since its new government came to power. Neighboring Country Y has experienced the same climatic conditions, but while agricultural production has been falling in Country X, it has been rising in Country Y.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above? (A) Industrial production also is declining in Country X. (B) Whereas Country Y is landlocked, Country X has a major seaport. (C) Both Country X and Country Y have been experiencing drought conditions. (D) The crops that have always been grown in Country X are different from those that have always been grown in Country Y. (E) Country X’s new government instituted a centralized economy with the intention of ensuring an equitable distribution of goods.
49. Last year the rate of inflation was 1.2 percent, but for the current year it has been 4 percent. We can conclude that inflation is on an upward trend and the rate will be still higher next year.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the conclusion above? (A) The inflation figures were computed on the basis of a representative sample of economic data rather than all of the available data. (B) Last year a dip in oil prices brought inflation temporarily below its recent stable annual level of 4 percent. (C) Increases in the pay of some workers are tied to the level of inflation, and at an inflation rate of 4 percent or above, these pay raises constitute a force causing further inflation. (D) The 1.2 percent rate of inflation last year represented a ten-year low. (E) Government intervention cannot affect the rate of inflation to any significant degree.
50. In the United States in 1986, the average rate of violent crime in states with strict gun-control laws was 645 crimes per 100,000 persons—about 50 percent higher than the average rate in the eleven states where strict gun-control laws have never been passed. Thus one way to reduce violent crime is to repeal strict gun control laws.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above? (A) The annual rate of violent crime in states with strict gun-control laws has decreased since the passage of those laws. (B) In states with strict gun-control laws, few individuals are prosecuted for violating such laws. (C) In states without strict gun-control laws, many individuals have had no formal training in the use of firearms. (D) The annual rate of nonviolent crime is lower in states with strict gun-control laws than in states without such laws. (E) Less than half of the individuals who reside in states without strict gun-control laws own a gun.
51. The proposal to hire ten new police officers in Middletown is quite foolish. There is sufficient funding to pay the salaries of the new officers, but not the salaries of additional court and prison employees to process the increased caseload of arrests and convictions that new officers usually generate.
Which of the following, if true, will most seriously weaken the conclusion drawn above? (A) Studies have shown that an increase in a city’s police force does not necessarily reduce crime. (B) When one major city increased its police force by 19 percent last year, there were 40 percent more arrests and 13 percent more convictions. (C) If funding for the new police officers’ salaries is approved, support for other city services will have to be reduced during the next fiscal year. (D) In most United States cities, not all arrests result in convictions, and not all convictions result in prison terms. E (E) Middletown’s ratio of police officers to citizens has reached a level at which an increase in the number of officers will have a deterrent effect on crime.
52. Northern Air has dozens of flights daily into and out of Belleville Airport, which is highly congested. Northern Air depends for its success on economy and quick turnaround and consequently is planning to replace its large planes with Skybuses, whose novel aerodynamic design is extremely fuel efficient. The Skybus’ fuel efficiency results in both lower fuel costs and reduced time spent refueling.
Which of the following, if true, could present the most serious disadvantage for Northern Air in replacing their large planes with Skybuses? (A) The Skybus would enable Northern Air to schedule direct flights to destinations that currently require stops for refueling. (B) Aviation fuel is projected to decline in price over the next several years. (C) The fuel efficiency of the Skybus would enable Northern Air to eliminate refueling at some of its destinations, but several mechanics would lose their jobs. (D) None of Northern Air’s competitors that use Belleville Airport are considering buying Skybuses. (E) The aerodynamic design of the Skybus causes turbulence behind it when taking off that forces other planes on the runway to delay their takeoffs.
53. In countries in which new life-sustaining drugs cannot be patented, such drugs are sold at widely affordable prices; those same drugs, where patented, command premium prices because the patents shield patent-holding manufacturers from competitors. These facts show that future access to new life-sustaining drugs can be improved if the practice of granting patents on newly developed life-sustaining drugs were to be abolished everywhere.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument? (A) In countries in which life-sustaining drugs cannot be patented, their manufacture is nevertheless a profitable enterprise. (B) Countries that do not currently grant patents on life-sustaining drugs are, for the most part, countries with large populations. (C) In some countries specific processes for the manufacture of pharmaceutical drugs can be patented even in cases in which the drugs themselves cannot be patented. (D) Pharmaceutical companies can afford the research that goes into the development of new drugs only if patents allow them to earn high profits. (E) Countries that grant patents on life-sustaining drugs almost always ban their importation from countries that do not grant such patents.
54. A museum has been offered an undocumented statue, supposedly Greek and from the sixth century B.C. Possibly the statue is genuine but undocumented because it was recently unearthed or because it has been privately owned. However, an ancient surface usually has uneven weathering, whereas the surface of this statue has the uniform quality characteristically produced by a chemical bath used by forgers to imitate a weathered surface. Therefore, the statue is probably a forgery.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument? (A) Museums can accept a recently unearthed statue only with valid export documentation from its country of origin. (B) The subject’s pose and other aspects of the subject’s treatment exhibit all the most common features of Greek statues of the sixth century B.C. (C) The chemical bath that forgers use was at one time used by dealers and collectors to remove the splotchy surface appearance of genuinely ancient sculptures. (D) Museum officials believe that forgers have no technique that can convincingly simulate the patchy weathering characteristic of the surfaces of ancient sculptures. (E) An allegedly Roman sculpture with a uniform surface similar to that of the stature being offered to the museum was recently shown to be a forgery.
55. In the arid land along the Colorado River, use of the river’s water supply is strictly controlled: farms along the river each have a limited allocation that they are allowed to use for irrigation. But the trees that grow in narrow strips along the river’s banks also use its water. Clearly, therefore, if farmers were to remove those trees, more water would be available for crop irrigation.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument? (A) The trees along the river’s banks shelter it from the sun and wind, thereby greatly reducing the amount of water lost through evaporation. (B) Owners of farms along the river will probably not undertake the expense of cutting down trees along the banks unless they are granted a greater allocation of water in return. (C) Many of the tree species currently found along the river’s banks are specifically adapted to growing in places where tree roots remain constantly wet. (D) The strip of land where trees grow along the river’s banks would not be suitable for growing crops if the trees were removed. (E) The distribution of water allocations for irrigation is intended to prevent farms farther upstream from using water needed by farms farther downstream.
56.The earliest Mayan pottery found at Colha, in Belize, is about 3,000 years old. Recently, however, 4,500-year-oold stone agricultural implements were unearthed at colha. These implements resemble Mayan stone implements of a much later period, also found at Colha. Moreover, the implements’ designs are strikingly different from the designs of stone implements produced by other cultures known to have inhabited the area in prehistoric times. Therefore, there were surely Mayan settlements in Colha 4,500 years ago.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument? (A) Ceramic ware is not known to have been used by the Maya to make agricultural implements. (B) Carbon dating of corn pollen in Colha indicates that agriculture began there around 4,500 years ago. (C) Archaeological evidence indicates that some of the oldest stone implements found at Colha were used to cut away vegetation after controlled burning of trees to open areas of swampland for cultivation. (D) Successor cultures at a given site often adopt the style of agricultural implements used by earlier inhabitants of the same site. (E) Many religious and social institutions of the Mayan people who inhabited Colha 3,000 years ago relied on a highly developed system of agricultural symbols.
57.Editorial: Regulations recently imposed by the government of Risemia call for unprecedented reductions in the amounts of pollutants manufacturers are allowed to discharge into the environment. It will take costly new pollution control equipment requiring expensive maintenance to comply with these regulations. Resultant price increases for Risemian manufactured goods will lead to the loss of some export markets. Clearly, therefore, annual exports of Risemian manufactured goods will in the future occur at diminished levels.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument in the editorial? (A) The need to comply with the new regulations will stimulate the development within Risemia of new pollution control equipment for which a strong worldwide demand is likely to emerge. (B) The proposed regulations include a schedule of fines for noncompliance that escalate steeply in cases of repeated noncompliance. (C) Savings from utilizing the chemicals captured by the pollution control equipment will remain far below the cost of maintaining the equipment. (D) By international standards, the levels of pollutants currently emitted by some of Risemia’s manufacturing plants are not considered excessive. (E) The stockholders of most Risemia’s manufacturing corporations exert substantial pressure on the corporations to comply with environmental laws.
58.Offshore oil-drilling operations entail an unavoidable risk of an oil spill, but importing oil on tankers presently entails an even greater such risk per barrel of oil. Therefore, if we are to reduce the risk of an oil spill without curtailing our use of oil, we must invest more in offshore operations and import less oil on tankers.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above? (A) Tankers can easily be redesigned so that their use entails less risk of an oil spill. (B) Oil spills caused by tankers have generally been more serious than those caused by offshore operations. (C) The impact of offshore operations on the environment can be controlled by careful management. (D) Offshore operations usually damage the ocean floor, but tankers rarely cause such damage. (E) Importing oil on tankers is currently less expensive than drilling for it offshore.
59.Automobile Dealer’s Advertisement: The Highway Traffic Safety Institute reports that the PZ 1000 has the fewest injuries per accident of any car in its class. This shows that the PZ 1000 is one of the safest cars available today.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument in the advertisement? (A) The Highway Traffic Safety Institute report listed many cars in other classes that had more injuries per accident than did the PZ 1000. (B) In recently years many more PZ 1000’s have been sold than have any other kind of car in its class. (C) Cars in the class to which the PZ 1000 belongs are more likely to be involved in accidents than are other types of cars. (D) The difference between the number of injuries per accident for the PZ 1000 and that for other cars in its class is quite pronounced. (E) The Highway Traffic Safety Institute issues reports only once a year.
60 .When demand for a factory’s products is high, more money is spent at the factory for safety precautions and machinery maintenance than when demand is low. Thus the average number of on-the-job accidents per employee each month should be lower during periods when demand is high than when demand is low and less money is available for safety precautions and machinery maintenance.
Which of the following, if true about a factory when demand for its products is high, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion drawn above? (A) Its employees ask for higher wages than they do at other times. (B) It s management hires new workers but lacks the time to train them properly. (C) Its employees are less likely to lose their jobs than they are at other times. (D) Its management sponsors a monthly safety award for each division in the factory. (E) Its old machinery is replaced with moderns, automated models.
61.To evaluate a plan to save money on office-space expenditures by having its employees work at home, XYZ Company asked volunteers from its staff to try the arrangement for six months. During this period, the productivity of these employees was as high as or higher than before.
Which of the following, if true, would argue most strongly against deciding, on the basis of the trial results, to implement the company’s plan? (A) The employees who agreed to participate in the test of the plan were among the company’s most self-motivated and independent workers. (B) The savings that would accrue from reduced office-space expenditures alone would be sufficient to justify the arrangement for the company, apart from any productivity increase. (C) Other companies that have achieved successful results from work-at-home plans have work forces that are substantially larger than that of XYZ. (D) The volunteers who worked at home were able to communicate with other employees as necessary for performing the work. (E) Minor changes in the way office work is organized at XYZ would yield increases in employee productivity similar to those achieved in the trial.
62 .Mourdet Winery: Danville Winery’s new wine was introduced to compete with our most popular wine, which is sold in a distinctive tall, black bottle. Danville uses a similar bottle. Thus, it is likely that many customers intending to buy our wine will mistakenly buy theirs instead.
Danville Winery: Not so. The two bottles can be readily distinguished: the label on ours, but not on theirs, is gold colored.
Which of the following, if true, most undermines Danville Winery’s response? (A) Gold is the background color on the label of many of the wines produced by Danville Winery. (B) When the bottles are viewed side by side, Danville Winery’s bottle is perceptibly taller than Mourdet Windery’s. (C) Danville Winery, unlike Mourdet Winery, displays its wine’s label prominently in advertisements. (D) It is common for occasional purchasers to buy a bottle of wine on the basis of a general impression of the most obvious feature of the bottle. (E) Many popular wines are sold in bottles of a standard design.
63.Editorial: The mayor plans to deactivate the city’s fire alarm boxes, because most calls received from them are false alarms. The mayor claims that the alarm boxes are no longer necessary, since most people now have access to either public or private telephone. But the city’s commercial district, where there is the greatest risk of fire, has few residents and few public telephones, so some alarm boxes are still necessary.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the editorial’s argument? (A) Maintaining the fire alarm boxes costs the city more than five million dollars annually. (B) Commercial buildings have automatic fire alarm systems that are linked directly to the fire department. (C) The fire department gets less information from an alarm box than it does from a telephone call. (D) The city’s fire department is located much closer to the residential areas than to the commercial district. (E) On average, almost 25 percent of the public telephones in the city are out of order.
64.A major impediment to wide acceptance of electric vehicles even on the part of people who use their cars almost exclusively for commuting is the inability to use electric vehicles for occasional extended trips. In an attempt to make purchasing electric vehicles more attractive to commuters, one electric vehicle producer is planning to offer customers three days free rental of a conventional car for every 1,000 miles that they drive their electric vehicle.
Which of the following, if true, most threatens the plan’s prospects for success? (A) Many eclectic vehicles that are used for commercial purposes are not needed for extended trips. (B) Because a majority of commuters drive at least 100 miles a week, the cost to the producer of making good the offer would add considerably to the already high price of electric vehicles. (C) The relatively long time it takes to recharge the battery of an electric vehicle can easily be fitted into the regular patterns of car use characteristic of commuters. (D) Although eclectic vehicles are essentially emission-free in actual use, generating the electricity necessary for charging an electric vehicle’s battery can burden the environment. (E) Some family vehicles are used primarily not for commuting but for making short local trips, such as to do errands.
65.An unusually severe winter occurred in Europe after the continent was blanketed by a blue haze resulting from the eruption of the Laki Volcano in the Europeans republic of Iceland in the summer of 1984. Thus, it is evident that major eruptions cause the atmosphere to become cooler than it would be otherwise.
Which of the following statements, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above? (A) The cooling effect triggered by volcanic eruptions in 1985 was counteracted by an unusual warming of Pacific waters. (B) There is a strong statistical link between volcanic eruptions and the severity of the rainy season in India. (C) A few months after EI Chichon’s large eruption in April 1982, air temperatures throughout the region remained higher than expected, given the long-term weather trends. (D) The climatic effects of major volcanic eruptions can temporality mask the general warming trend resulting from an excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (E) Three months after an early springtime eruption in South America during the late 19th century, sea surface temperatures near the coast began to fall.
66.A factory was trying out a new process for producing one of its products, with the goal of reducing production costs. A trial production run using the new process showed a 15 percent reduction in costs compared with past performance using the standard process. The production managers therefore concluded that the new process did produce a cost savings.
Which of the following, if true, casts most doubt on the production manager’s conclusion? (A) In the cost reduction project that eventually led to the trial of the new process, production managers had initially been seeking cost reductions of 50 percent. (B) Analysis of the trial of the new process showed that the cost reduction during the trial was entirely attributable to a reduction in the umber of finished products rejected by quality control. (C) While the trial was being conducted, production costs at the factory for a similar product, produced without benefit of the new process, also showed a 15 percent reduction. (D) Although some of the factory’s managers have been arguing that the product is outdated and ought to be redesigned, the use of the new production process does not involve any changes in the finished product. (E) Since the new process differs from the standard process only in the way in which the stage of production are organized and ordered, the cost of the materials used in the product is the same in both processes.
67 .Outsourcing is the practice of obtaining from an independent supplier a product or service that a company has previously provided for itself. Since a company’s chief objective is to realize the highest possible year-end profits, any product or service that can be obtained from an independent supplier for less than it would cost the company to provide the product or service on its own should be outsourced.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument? (A) If a company decides to use independent suppliers for a product, it can generally exploit the vigorous competition arising among several firms that are interested in supplying that product. (B) Successful outsourcing requires a company to provide its suppliers with information about its products and plans that can fall into the hands of its competitors and give them a business advantage. (C) Certain tasks, such as processing a company’s payroll, are commonly outsourced, whereas others, such as handling the company’s core business, are not. (D) For a company to provide a product or service for itself as efficiently as an independent supplier can provide it, the managers involved need to be as expert in the area of that product or service as the people in charge of that product or service at an independent supplier are. B (E) When a company decides to sue an independent supplier for a product or service, the independent supplier sometimes hires members of the company’s staff who formerly made the product or provided the service that the independent supplier now supplies.
68 .State spokesperson: Many businesspeople who have not been to our state believe that we have an inadequate road system. Those people are mistaken, as is obvious from the fact that in each of the past six years, our state has spent more money per mile on road improvements than any other state.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the reasoning in the spokesperson’s argument? (A) In the spokesperson’s state, spending on road improvements has been increasing more slowly over the past six years than it has in several other states. (B) Adequacy of a state’s road system is generally less important to a businessperson considering doing business there than is the availability of qualified employees. (C) Over the past six years, numerous businesses have business have moved into the state. (D) In general, the number of miles of road in a state’ road system depends on both the area and the population of the state. E (E) Only states with seriously inadequate road systems need to spend large amounts of money on road improvements.
69 .Journalist: In physics journals, the number of articles reporting the results of experiments involving particle accelerators was lower last year than it had been in previous years. Several of the particle accelerators at major research institutions were out of service the year before last for repairs, so it is likely that the low number of articles was due to the decline in availability of particle accelerators.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the journalist’s argument? (A) Every article based on experiments with particle accelerators that was submitted for publication last year actually was published. (B) The average time scientists must wait for access to a particle accelerator has declined over the last several years. (C) The number of physics journals was the same last year as in previous years. (D) Particle accelerators can be used for more than one group of experiments in any given year. (E) Recent changes in the editorial policies of several physics journals have decreased the likelihood that articles concerning particle-accelerator research will be accepted for publication. | 
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发表于 2014-4-18 15:46:37
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