【4月30日逻辑答案】

belinda_cao

32. A recent spate of launching and operating mishaps with television satellites led to a corresponding surge in claims against companies underwriting satellite insurance. As a result, insurance premiums shot up, making satellites more expensive to launch and operate. This, in turn, has added to the pressure to squeeze more performance out of currently operating satellites.

Which of the following, if true, taken together with the information above, best supports the conclusion that the cost of television satellites will continue to increase?

A. Since the risk to insurers of satellites is spread over relatively few units, insurance premiums are necessarily very high.

B. When satellites reach orbit and then fail, the causes of failure are generally impossible to pinpoint with confidence.

C. The greater the performance demands placed on satellites, the more frequently those satellites break down.

D. Most satellites are produced in such small numbers that no economies of scale can be realized. C

E. Since many satellites are built by unwieldy international consortia, inefficiencies are inevitable.

32.

According to the passage, satellite mishaps caused a surge in insurance claims, which, in turn, caused increased insurance premiums. Higher premiums made the satellites more costly, resulting in increased performance demands. If C is true, the greater demands on performance will lead to further increases in costs by increasing the number of mishaps, and thus pushing insurance premiums still higher. Thus, C is the best answer.

A, D and E all describe factors relevant to costs, but there is no reason to think that the situation described in the passage will cause the costs resulting from these factors to increase. Similarly, the impossibility of pinpointing the cause of failure, mentioned in B, is consistent with the cost of satellites remaining stable.

34. In 1985 state border colleges in Texas lost the enrollment of more than half, on average, of the Mexican nationals they had previously served each year. Teaching faculties have alleged that this extreme drop resulted from a rise in tuition for international and out-of-state students from $ 40 to $ 120 per credit hour.

Which of the following, if feasible, offers the best prospects for alleviating the problem of the drop in enrollment of Mexican nationals as the teaching faculties assessed it?

A. Providing grants-in-aid to Mexican nationals to study in Mexican universities.

B. Allowing Mexican nationals to study in Texas border colleges and to pay in-state tuition rates, which are the same as the previous international rate

C. Reemphasizing the goals and mission of the Texas state border colleges as serving both in-state students and Mexican nationals

D. Increasing the financial resources of Texas colleges by raising the tuition for in-state students attending state institutions B

E. Offering career counseling for those Mexican nationals who graduate from state border colleges and intend to return to Mexico

34.

The teaching faculties attribute the drop in enrollment of Mexican nationals to an increase in tuition costs. If the faculties are correct, reducing these costs should halt the drop in enrollment. B offers a plan for reducing these costs and so is the best answer.

None of C, D and E offers a plan that would reduce the costs taken to be responsible for the drop in enrollment. Nor does A offer such a plan: because the problem to be addressed is a drop in enrollment of Mexican nationals at Texas border colleges, providing financial incentive for Mexican nationals to study at Mexican universities, as A suggests, would offer no prospect of alleviating the problem.

35. Affirmative action is good business. So asserted the National Association of Manufacturers while urging retention of an executive order requiring some federal contractors to set numerical goals for hiring minorities and women. “Diversity in work force participation has produced new ideas in management, product development, and marketing,” the association claimed.

The association’s argument as it is presented in the passage above would be most strengthened if which of the following were true?

A. The percentage of minority and women workers in business has increased more slowly than many minority and women’s groups would prefer.

B. Those businesses with the highest percentages of minority and women workers are those that have been the most innovative and profitable.

C. Disposable income has been rising as fast among minorities and women as among the population as a whole.

D. The biggest growth in sales in the manufacturing sector has come in industries that market the most innovative products. B

E. Recent improvements in management practices have allowed many manufacturers to experience enormous gains in worker productivity.

35.

If, as B says, businesses with the highest percentages of minorities and women have been the most profitable, there is reason to believe that, because it increases the level of participation of women and minorities in the work force, affirmative action is good business. Thus, B is the best answer.

A suggests that minority and women’s groups have reason to support affirmative action, but it does not indicate that affirmative action is good business. Because there is no indication that the improvement in disposable income noted in C is due to affirmative action, C does not strengthen the argument given for affirmative action. D and E address growth in sales and improvements in management; neither, however, asserts that these benefits are due to affirmative action.

37. If the airspace around centrally located airports were restricted to commercial airliners and only those private planes equipped with radar, most of the private-plane traffic would be forced to sue outlying airfields. Such a reduction in the amount of private-plane traffic would reduce the risk of midair collision around the centrally located airports.

Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion drawn in the second sentence?

A. Commercial airliners are already required by law to be equipped with extremely sophisticated radar systems.

B. Centrally located airports are experiencing overcrowded airspace primarily because f sharp increases in commercial-airline traffic.

C. Many pilots of private planes would rather buy radar equipment than be excluded from centrally located airports.

D. The number of midair collisions that occur near centrally located airports has decreased in recent years. E

E. Private planes not equipped with radar systems cause a disproportionately large number of midair collisions around centrally located airports.

37.

The second sentence concludes that the reduction described in the first sentence would reduce the risk of midair collisions around centrally located airports. According to E, such a reduction would remove precisely the kind of plane that causes a disproportionate number of midair collisions. Thus, E is the best answer.

Because A does not address the question of whether reducing private-plane traffic would reduce the risk of midair collisions, it is inappropriate. B and C concern the question of whether or not the proposed restrictions would reduce plane traffic, but not the question of whether any resulting reductions would reduce the risk of midair collisions. That the number of midair collisions has recently decreased is irrelevant to whether the proposed reduction would further reduce collisions, so D is inappropriate.

50 Airline: Newly developed collision-avoidance systems, although not fully tested to discover potential malfunctions, must be installed immediately in passenger planes. Their mechanical warnings enable pilots to avoid crashes.

Pilots: Pilots will not fly in planes with collision-avoidance systems that are not fully tested. Malfunctioning systems could mislead pilots, causing crashes.

The pilots’ objection is most strengthened if which of the following is true?

(A) It is always possible for mechanical devices to malfunction.

(B) Jet engines, although not fully tested when first put into use, have achieved exemplary performance and safety records.

(C) Although collision-avoidance systems will enable pilots to avoid some crashes, the likely malfunctions of the not-fully-tested systems will cause even more crashes.

(D) Many airline collisions are caused in part by the exhaustion of overworked pilots. C

(E) Collision-avoidance systems, at this stage of development, appear to have worked better in passenger planes than in cargo planes during experimental flights made over a six-month period.

50.

Choice C states that what the pilots think could happen is likely to happen. Thus, C is the best choice.

Choice A is inappropriate because it says nothing about the malfunctions that most concern the pilots-those that might mislead. Nor does A distinguish tested from not-fully-tested systems. Choice B is inappropriate. The only outcome of using insufficiently tested equipment that might strengthen the pilots’ objection is an unfavorable one, but B reports on a favorable outcome. Choice D is inappropriate because it mentions a problem that needs to be addressed whether or not the collision-avoidance systems are installed immediately. Choice E is inappropriate because it provides no evidence that any malfunctions were of a sort to mislead pilots and cause crashes.

53. Two decades after the Emerald River Dam was built, none of the eight fish species native to the Emerald River was still reproducing adequately in the river below the dam. Since the dam reduced the annual range of water temperature in the river below the dam from 50 degrees to 6 degrees, scientists have hypothesized that sharply rising water temperatures must be involved in signaling the native species to begin the reproductive cycle.

Which of the following statements, if true, would most strengthen the scientists’ hypothesis?

(A) The native fish species were still able to reproduce only in side streams of the river below the dam where the annual temperature range remains approximately 50 degrees.

(B) Before the dam was built, the Emerald River annually overflowed its banks, creating backwaters that were critical breeding areas for the native species of fish.

(C) The lowest recorded temperature of the Emerald River before the dam was built was 34 degrees, whereas the lowest recorded temperature of the river after the dam was built has been 43 degrees.

(D)Nonnative species of fish, introduced into the Emerald River after the dam was built, have begun competing with the declining native fish species for food and space. A

(E) Five of the fish species native to the Emerald River are not native to any other river in North America.

53.

For the hypothesis to be tenable it is important that the fish in streams in the Emerald River area that retain a wide temperature difference have not lost their ability to reproduce. Choice A asserts that these fish could still reproduce and is thus the best answer.

Choice B undermines the hypothesis by suggesting a completely different hypothesis; choice C tends to support the claim that the temperature variation has lessened but does not show that this is the right explanation; since D relates a development after the native species began to decline, it does not bear on the hypothesis, which concerns the decline’s original cause; and choice E emphasizes the seriousness of the problem but sheds no light on what causes it.

55. In recent years many cabinetmakers have been winning acclaim as artists. But since furniture must be useful, cabinetmakers must exercise their craft with an eye to the practical utility of their product. For this reason, cabinetmaking is not art.

Which of the following is an assumption that supports drawing the conclusion above from the reason given for that conclusion?

(A) Some furniture is made to be placed in museums, where it will not be used by anyone.

(B) Some cabinetmakers are more concerned than others with the practical utility of the products they produce.

(C) Cabinetmakers should be more concerned with the practical utility of their products than they currently are.

(D) An object is not an art object if its maker pays attention to the object’s practical utility. D

(E) Artists are not concerned with the monetary value of their products.

55.

The argument concludes that cabinetmaking is not an art because cabinetmakers must consider the practical utility of their products. If it is true that an object is not a work of art if its maker pays attention to the object’s practical utility, as choice D says, the conclusion is supported. Thus, choice D is the best answer.

The argument is concerned with whether or not the cabinetmakers must take the practical utility of their products into consideration, not with either their monetary value (choice E) or what actually happens to them (choice A). The argument is not concerned with precise degree to which individual cabinetmakers take the practical utility of cabinets into consideration. Thus, neither B nor C is appropriate.