Yeasts capable of leavening bread are widespread, and in the many centuries during which the ancient Egyptians made only unleavened bread, such yeasts must frequently have been mixed into bread doughs accidentally. The Egyptians, however, did not discover leavened bread until about 3000 B.C. That discovery roughly coincided with the introduction of a wheat variety that was preferable to previous varieties because its edible kernel could be removed from the husk without first toasting the grain. Which of the following, if true, provide the strongest evidence that the two developments were causally related? - Even after the ancient Egyptians discovered leavened bread and the techniques for reliably producing it were well known, unleavened bread continued to be widely consumed.
- Only when the Egyptians stopped the practice of toasting grain were their stone-lined grain-toasting pits available for baking bread.
- Heating a wheat kernel destroys its gluten, a protein that must be present in order for yeast to leaven bread dough.
- The new variety of wheat, which had a more delicate flavor because it was not toasted, was reserved for the consumption of high officials when it first began to be grown.
- Because the husk of the new variety of wheat was more easily removed, flour made from it required less effort to produce
Why C?
Smithtown University’s fund-raisers succeeded in getting donations from 80 percent of the potential donors they contacted. This success rate, exceptionally high for university fund-raisers, does not indicate that they were doing a good job. On the contrary, since the people most likely to donate are those who have donated in the past, good fund-raisers constantly try less-likely prospects in an effort to expand the donor base. The high success rate shows insufficient canvassing effort.
Which of the following, if true, provides more support for the argument?
- Smithtown
University’s fund-raisers were successful in their contacts with potential donors who had never given before about as frequently as were fund-raisers for other universities in their contacts with such people. - This year the average size of the donations to Smithtown
University from new donors when the university’s fund-raisers had contacted was larger than the average size of donations from donors who had given to the university before. - This year most of the donations that came to Smithtown
University from people who had previously donated to it were made without the university’s fund-raisers having made any contact with the donors. - The majority of the donations that fund-raisers succeeded in getting for Smithtown
University this year were from donors who had never given to the university before. - More than half of the money raised by Smithtown
University’s fund-raisers came from donors who had never previously donated to the university.
Why A?
GWD-12-Q11: In general, jobs are harder to get in times of economic recession because many businesses cut back operations. However, any future recessions in Vargonia will probably not reduce the availability of teaching jobs at government-funded schools. This is because Vargonia has just introduced a legal requirement that education in government-funded schools be available, free of charge, to all Vargonian children regardless of the state of the economy, and that current student-teacher ratios not be exceeded.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?
- The current student-teacher ratio at Vargonia’s government-funded schools is higher than it was during the most recent period of economic recession.
- During recent periods when the Vargonian economy has been strong, almost 25 percent of Vargonian children have attended privately funded schools, many of which charge substantial fees.
- Nearly 20 percent more teachers are currently employed in Vargonia’s government-funded schools than had been employed in those schools in the period before the last economic recession.
- Teachers in Vargonia’s government-funded schools are well paid relative to teachers in most privately funded schools in Vargonia, many of which rely heavily on part-time teachers.
- During the last economic recession in Vargonia, the government permanently closed a number of the schools that it had funded.
Why B?
GWD-12-Q29: The Earth’s rivers constantly carry dissolved salts into its oceans. Clearly, therefore, by taking the resulting increase in salt levels in the oceans over the past hundred years and then determining how many centuries of such increases it would have taken the oceans to reach current salt levels from a hypothetical initial salt-free state, the maximum age of the Earth’s oceans can be accurately estimated.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
- The quantities of dissolved salts deposited by rivers in the Earth’s oceans have not been unusually large during the past hundred years.
- At any given time, all the Earth’s rivers have about the same salt levels.
- There are salts that leach into the Earth’s oceans directly from the ocean floor.
- There is no method superior to that based on salt levels for estimating the maximum age of the Earth’s oceans.
- None of the salts carried into the Earth’s oceans by rivers are used up by biological activity in the oceans.
Why A?
GWD-12-Q38: Outbreaks of Rift Valley fever occur irregularly in East Africa, several years apart. When outbreaks do occur, they kill thousands of cattle. A livestock vaccine against the disease exists but is rarely used. It is too expensive for farmers to use routinely, and since it is not effective until a month after vaccination, administering it after an outbreak begins helps very little. Nevertheless, experts predict that use of the vaccine will increase significantly within the next few years.
Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest justification for the experts’ prediction?
- Rift Valley fever is spread by mosquitoes, but each outbreak is so widespread that it is impractical to control it by using insecticides.
- When an outbreak of Rift Valley fever occurs, unaffected countries often refuse to import livestock from the countries affected by the outbreak.
- It would take less than a month for producers of the vaccine to adjust their production operations to cope with a large increase in demand.
- Many cattle farmers in East Africa are nomadic or live in remote villages, and such farmers, who have little access to modern veterinary medicine, are particularly hard hit by outbreaks of Rift Valley fever.
- Recently published research has shown that certain identifiable climatic conditions are almost invariably followed, within two to five months, by an outbreak of Rift Valley fever.
Why E?
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