1.A company is considering changing its policy concern-
ing daily working hours. Currently, this company
requires all employees to arrive at work at 8 a.m. The
proposed policy would permit each employee to decide
when to arrive—from as early as 6 a.m. to as late as
11 a.m.
The adoption of this policy would be most likely to
decrease employees’ productivity if the employees’
job functions required them to
(A) work without interruption from other employees
(B) consult at least once a day with employees from
other companies
© submit their work for a supervisor’s eventual
approval
(D) interact frequently with each other throughout
the entire workday
(E) undertake projects that take several days to
complete
2. The amount of time it takes for most of a worker’s
occupational knowledge and skills to become obsolete
has been declining because of the introduction of
advanced manufacturing technology (AMT). Given
the rate at which AMT is currently being introduced
in manufacturing, the average worker’s old skills
become obsolete and new skills are required within as
little as five years.
Which of the following plans, if feasible, would
allow a company to prepare most effectively for the
rapid obsolescence of skills described above?
(A) The company will develop a program to offer
selected employees the opportunity to receive
training six years after they were originally
hired.
(B) The company will increase its investment in
AMT every year for a period of at least five
years.
© The company will periodically survey its
employees to determine how the introduction
of AMT has affected them.
(D) Before the introduction of AMT, the company
will institute an educational program to inform
its employees of the probable consequences of
the introduction of AMT.
(E) The company will ensure that it can offer its
employees any training necessary for meeting
their job requirements.
3. Installing scrubbers in smokestacks and switching to
cleaner-burning fuel are the two methods available to
Northern Power for reducing harmful emissions from
its plants. Scrubbers will reduce harmful emissions
more than cleaner-burning fuels will. Therefore, by
installing scrubbers, Northern Power will be doing
the most that can be done to reduce harmful emissions
from its plants.
Which of the following is an assumption on which
the argument depends?
(A) Switching to cleaner-burning fuel will not be
more expensive than installing scrubbers.
(B) Northern Power can choose from among various
kinds of scrubbers, some of which are more
effective than others.
© Northern Power is not necessarily committed to
reducing harmful emissions from its plants.
(D) Harmful emissions from Northern Power’s plants
cannot be reduced more by using both methods
together than by the installation of scrubbers
alone.
(E) Aside from harmful emissions from the smoke-
stacks of its plants, the activities of Northern
Power do not cause significant air pollution.
4. Some anthropologists study modern-day societies of
foragers in an effort to learn about our ancient
ancestors who were also foragers. A flaw in this
strategy is that forager societies are extremely varied.
Indeed, any forager society with which anthropologists
are familiar has had considerable contact with modern
nonforager societies.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken
the criticism made above of the anthropologists’
strategy?
(A) All forager societies throughout history have had
a number of important features in common that
are absent from other types of societies.
(B) Most ancient forager societies either dissolved or
made a transition to another way of life.
© All anthropologists study one kind or another of
modern-day society.
(D) Many anthropologists who study modern-day
forager societies do not draw inferences about
ancient societies on the basis of their studies.
(E) Even those modern-day forager societies that
have not had significant contact with modern
societies are importantly different from ancient
forager societies.
5. Mayor: In each of the past five years, the city has
cut school funding and each time school
officials complained that the cuts would force
them to reduce expenditures for essential
services. But each time, only expenditures for
nonessential services were actually reduced.
So school officials can implement further cuts
without reducing any expenditures for essential
services.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly sup-
ports the mayor’s conclusion?
(A) The city’s schools have always provided
essential services as efficiently as they have
provided nonessential services.
(B) Sufficient funds are currently available to allow
the city’s schools to provide some nonessential
services.
© Price estimates quoted to the city’s schools for
the provision of nonessential services have not
increased substantially since the most recent
school funding cut.
(D) Few influential city administrators support the
funding of costly nonessential services in the
city’s schools.
(E) The city’s school officials rarely exaggerate the
potential impact of threatened funding cuts.
6. Advertisement:
For sinus pain, three out of four hospitals give their
patients Novex. So when you want the most effective
painkiller for sinus pain, Novex is the one to choose.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously
undermines the advertisement’s argument?
(A) Some competing brands of painkillers are
intended to reduce other kinds of pain in
addition to sinus pain.
(B) Many hospitals that do not usually use Novex
will do so for those patients who cannot
tolerate the drug the hospitals usually use.
© Many drug manufacturers increase sales of their
products to hospitals by selling these products
to the hospitals at the lowest price the manu-
facturers can afford.
(D) Unlike some competing brands of painkillers,
Novex is available from pharmacies without a
doctor’s prescription.
(E) In clinical trials Novex has been found more
effective than competing brands of painkillers
that have been on the market longer than
Novex.
7. A report that many apples contain a cancer-causing
preservative called Alar apparently had little effect on
consumers. Few consumers planned to change their
apple-buying habits as a result of the report. Nonethe-
less, sales of apples in grocery stores fell sharply in
March, a month after the report was issued.
Which of the following, if true, best explains the
reason for the apparent discrepancy described above?
(A) In March, many grocers removed apples from
their shelves in order to demonstrate concern
about their customers’ health.
(B) Because of a growing number of food-safety
warnings, consumers in March were indifferent
to such warnings.
© The report was delivered on television and also
appeared in newspapers.
(D) The report did not mention that any other fruit
contains Alar, although the preservative is used
on other fruit.
(E) Public health officials did not believe that apples
posed a health threat because only minute
traces of Alar were present in affected apples.
8. A new law gives ownership of patents—documents
providing exclusive right to make and sell an inven-
tion—to universities, not the government, when
those patents result from government-sponsored uni-
versity research. Administrators at Logos University
plan to sell any patents they acquire to corporations
in order to fund programs to improve undergraduate
teaching.
Which of the following, if true, would cast most
doubt on the viability of the college administrators’
plan described above?
(A) Profit-making corporations interested in devel-
oping products based on patents held by uni-
versities are likely to try to serve as exclusive
sponsors of ongoing university research projects.
(B) Corporate sponsors of research in university
facilities are entitled to tax credits under new
federal tax-code guidelines.
© Research scientists at Logos University have few
or no teaching responsibilities and participate little
if at all in the undergraduate programs in their field.
(D) Government-sponsored research conducted at
Logos University for the most part duplicates
research already completed by several profit-
making corporations.
(E) Logos University is unlikely to attract corporate
sponsorship of its scientific research.
9. Contrary to earlier predictions, demand for sugarcane
has not increased in recent years. Yet, even though
prices and production amounts have also been stable
during the last three years, sugarcane growers last
year increased their profits by more than ten percent
over the previous year’s level.
Any of the following statements, if true about last
year, helps to explain the rise in profits EXCEPT:
(A) Many countries that are large consumers of
sugarcane increased their production of
sugarcane-based ethanol, yet their overall
consumption of sugarcane decreased.
(B) Sugarcane growers have saved money on wages
by switching from paying laborers an hourly
wage to paying them by the amount harvested.
© The price of oil, the major energy source used
by sugarcane growers in harvesting their crops,
dropped by over twenty percent.
(D) Many small sugarcane growers joined together
to form an association of sugarcane producers
and began to buy supplies at low group rates.
(E) Rainfall in sugarcane-growing regions was
higher than it had been during the previous
year, allowing the growers to save money on
expensive artificial irrigation.
10. If the county continues to collect residential trash at
current levels, landfills will soon be overflowing and
parkland will need to be used in order to create more
space. Charging each household a fee for each pound
of trash it puts out for collection will induce residents
to reduce the amount of trash they create; this charge
will therefore protect the remaining county parkland.
Which of the following is an assumption made in
drawing the conclusion above?
(A) Residents will reduce the amount of trash they
put out for collection by reducing the number
of products they buy.
(B) The collection fee will not significantly affect
the purchasing power of most residents, even if
their households do not reduce the amount of
trash they put out.
© The collection fee will not induce residents to
dump their trash in the parklands illegally.
(D) The beauty of county parkland is an important
issue for most of the county’s residents.
(E) Landfills outside the county’s borders could be
used as dumping sites for the county’s trash.
what's the ans.
