Critical Reasoning Date:13-2-2018

Critical Reasoning Date:13-2-2018

1.A fashion designer’s fall line for women utilizing new soft fabrics broke all sales records last year. To capitalize on her success, the designer plans to launch a line of clothing for men this year that makes use of the same new soft fabrics.
The designer’s plan assumes that
A) other designers are not planning to introduce new lines for men utilizing the same soft fabrics(B) men will be as interested in the new soft fabrics as women were the year before
C) the designer will have time to develop new lines for both men and women
D) the line for men will be considered innovative and daring because of its use of fabrics
E) women who bought the new line last year will continue to buy it this year

2.The extent to which a society is really free can be gauged by its attitude toward artistic expression. Freedom of expression can easily be violated in even the most outwardly democratic of societies. When a government arts council withholds funding from a dance performance that its members deem “obscene,” the voices of a few bureaucrats have in fact censored the work of the choreographer, thereby committing the real obscenity of repression.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the argument above?
A) Members of government arts councils are screened to ensure that their beliefs reflect those of the majority
B) The term obscenity has several different definitions that should not be used interchangeably for rhetorical effect
C) Failing to provide financial support for a performance is not the same as actively preventing or inhibiting it
D) The council’s decision could be reversed if the performance were altered to conform to public standards of appropriateness.
E) The definition of obscenity is something on which most members of society can agree.

3.After its customers complained about being pressured to buy unneeded insurance, an insurance agency stopped rewarding its agents for high sales volume and instead gave them bonuses for high levels of customer satisfaction. Under this new plan, both customer satisfaction and the insurance agency’s sales increased.
Each of the following, if true, helps to explain how the change in incentives for agents could have resulted in increased sales EXCEPT:
A) Customers were so pleased that the insurance agency had responded to their complaints that they recommended the agency to their friends.
B) Agents listened more closely to customers of long standing and were able to sell them additional insurance policies that met new needs.
C) Agents more frequently postponed completing the attendant paperwork even after the terms for an insurance policy were settled to the satisfaction of the client.
D) Dissatisfied customers of other agencies, attracted by the reports of the change in agency policy, became customers of the agency.
E) Having come to trust the increased judiciousness of the agents’ recommendations, customers approached the agency to discuss and ultimately to buy more supplementary insurance than they previously had bought under pressure.

4.In recent study published in The Journal of Family Practice, no significant benefit over a placebo was found from using the antibiotic Amoxicillin among 135 patients with typical indications of a sinus infection. All the patients complained of sinusitis, with pus in the nasal cavity, facial pressure of nasal discharge lasting longer than seven days. A small subgroup of patients receiving the antibiotic became better faster than the others. But the researchers were unable to discern anything about those patients prior to administering Amoxicillin that indicated a bacterial infection, as opposed to a viral one.
From the above passage it may be inferred that
A) Use of an antibiotic is beneficial for sinusitis patients.
B) Antibiotics should be administered to only those sinusitis patients, who have been diagnosed to have a bacterial infection.
C) Antibiotics do not have any effect on sinusitis patients.
D) Use of an antibiotic may be beneficial for a small percentage of sinusitis patients with bacterial infection, but in general antibiotics are useless for sinusitis patients.
E) None of these

5.Highway Official: When resurfacing our concrete bridges, we should use electrically conductive concrete (ECC) rather than standard concrete. In the winter, ECC can be heated by passing an electric current through it, thereby preventing ice buildup. The cost of the electricity needed is substantially lower than the cost of the de-icing salt we currently use.
Taxpayer:But construction costs for ECC are much higher than for standard concrete, so your proposal is probably not justifiable on economic grounds.
Which of the following, if true, could best be used to support the highway official’s proposal in the face of taxpayer’s objection?
A) The use of de-icing salt causes corrosion of the reinforcing steel in concrete bridge decks and damage to the concrete itself, thereby considerably shortening the useful life of concrete bridges.
B) Severe icing conditions can cause power outages and slow down the work of emergency crews trying to get power restored.
C) In weather conditions conducive to icing, ice generally forms on the concrete surfaces of bridges well before it forms on parts of the roadway that go over solid ground.
D) Aside from its potential use for de-icing bridges, ECC might also be an effective means of keeping other concrete structures such as parking garages and airport runways ice free.
E) If ECC were to be used for a bridge surface, the electric current would be turned on only at times at which ice was likely to form.

6.A survey recently revealed a high correlation between a household’s level of education and its library. Specifically, the more years of college and graduate school education received by the household’s members, the more books in the household’s library. The survey also indicated that the higher the education level of the household, the greater the percentage of books that are not works of fiction in its library.
Which of the following can be properly inferred from the survey results cited above?
A) People with a higher level of education prefer reading nonfiction to works of fiction.
B) Households with low education levels generally own more works of fiction than do households with high education levels.
C) Households with lower levels of education generally own more works of fiction than nonfiction.
D) The higher the education level of a household, the fewer works of fiction owned by the household.
E) Households with high education levels generally own more nonfiction books than do households with low education levels.

7.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.
C) 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 smokestacks of its plants, the activities of Northern Power do not cause significant air pollution

8.Recent studies show that people between the ages of 13 and 55 produce 65 pounds more garbage per year than they did in 1995. This increase has led to a higher percentage of the total garbage produced by all the age groups. This age group constitutes a growing percentage of the population, so it partially explains this rise.
Which of the following can be concluded from passage?
A) People over the age of 55 produce more garbage than people less than the age of 13.
B) Population has risen since 1995.
C) People between the age of 13 and 55 are more than half of current population.
D) Before 1995, people below age 13 and above age 55 produced higher percentage of total garbage than they do now.
E) People between the age of 13 and 55 produce more garbage than those below 13 or older than 55.

9.Children of alcoholics are much more likely to become alcoholics than are children of nonalcoholics. The likelihood varies depending on which parent is alcoholic and is much greater if both are alcoholic. This pattern holds true even if children are separated from their alcoholic parent[s] at birth.
Which of the following conclusions can most reliably be drawn from the statements above?
A) Children of nonalcoholics do not become alcoholics.
B) Fathers influence their children’s alcoholic tendencies more than mothers do.
C) A tendency toward alcoholism can be at least partially determined by genetics.
D) Environment has little influence on alcoholism.
E) Because it is inherited, alcoholism is difficult to treat.

10.Left-handed persons suffer more frequently than do right-handed persons from certain immune disorders, such as allergies. Left-handers tend to have an advantage over the right-handed majority, however, on tasks controlled by the right hemisphere of the brain, and mathematical reasoning is strongly under the influence of the right hemisphere in most people.
If the information above is true, it best supports which of the following hypotheses?
A) Most people who suffer from allergies or other such immune disorders are left-handed rather than right-handed.
B) Most left-handed mathematicians suffer from some kind of allergy.
C) There are proportionally more left-handers among people whose ability to reason mathematically is above average than there are among people with poor mathematical reasoning ability.
D) If a left-handed person suffers from an allergy, that person will probably be good at mathematics.
E) There are proportionally more people who suffer from immune disorders such as allergies than there are people who are left-handed or people whose mathematical reasoning ability is unusually good.

11.Half of the subjects in an experiment—the experimental group—consumed large quantities of a popular artificial sweetener. Afterward, this group showed lower cognitive abilities than did the other half of the subjects—the control group—who did not consume the sweetener. The detrimental effects were attributed to an amino acid that is one of the sweetener’s principal constituents.
Which of the following, if true, would best support the conclusion that some ingredient of the sweetener was responsible for the experimental results?
A) Most consumers of the sweetener do not consume as much of it as the experimental group members did.
B) The amino acid referred to in the conclusion is a component of all proteins, some of which must be consumed for adequate nutrition.
C) The quantity of the sweetener consumed by individuals in the experimental group is considered safe by federal food regulators.
D) The two groups of subjects were evenly matched with regard to cognitive abilities prior to the experiment.
E) A second experiment in which subjects consumed large quantities of the sweetener lacked a control group of subjects who were not given the sweetener.

12.Ten years after graduation, men and women who had participated in the Thompson High School basketball program were surveyed with regard to their individual playing records for their teams. Some of the results of the survey were curious. Seventy-five percent of those responding reported that they had started for their respective boys’ or girls’ teams, when the actual number of boys and girls who had started for their teams was only 50%.
Which one of the following provides the most helpful explanation for the apparent contradiction in these survey results?
A) A very small number of those responding were incorrect in reporting that they held starting positions.
B) A disproportionately high number of players who started for their teams responded to the survey.
C) Not all starting players responded to the survey.
D) Almost all men and women who played basketball for Thompson High School ten years earlier responded to the survey.
E) Not all good basketball players started for their teams; some good players were deliberately held out to play later in the game.

13.To reduce the danger to life and property posed by major earthquakes, scientists have been investigating several techniques for giving advance warning of dangerous earthquakes. Since catfish swim erratically before earthquakes, some investigators have proposed monitoring catfish to predict dangerous earthquakes.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the usefulness of the proposal?
A) In Japan, which is subject to frequent earthquakes, the behavior of catfish has long been associated with earthquakes.
B) Mechanical methods for detecting earthquakes have not proved effective.
C) Tremors lead to the release of hydrogen sulfide gas into water, thereby causing various fish and shellfish to behave erratically.
D) Careful construction can reduce the dangers posed by earthquakes.
E) Even very slight, fleeting tremors cause catfish to swim erratically

14.Columnist: The winner of this year’s national spelling bee won by correctly spelling the spoken word Ursprache, which means “fame” in German. Given the richness of our language, why must we resort to words taken from modern foreign languages to challenge our best spellers? Ursprache is listed in our dictionary, as are words from many other foreign languages, but future spelling bees should limit themselves to words in our dictionary that have been anglicized in all aspects because spelling English words, not knowledge of linguistics and international phonetics, is the point of these contests.
Which of the following can most reasonably be inferred from the argument above?
A) The spelling contest winner knew how to spell most of the anglicized words in the dictionary.
B) Foreign words are more difficult than anglicized words for all contestants to spell.
C) Spelling contestant winners should be determined by their facility with all aspects of language.
D) To spell foreign words, contestants must recognize the language and know its pronunciation.
E) The English language contains more borrowed words than most other languages.

15.Country Casa’s lakes have been experiencing a constant deterioration in water quality due to too many visitors. Therefore, Casa has decided that the best way to save its lakes is by charging an extra fee to users of the lakes.
Which of the following is an assumption underlying the conclusion?
A) Changing global temperatures has been shown to be mostly responsible for the lakes’ deterioration.
B) It is clear that charging higher fees will not be enough to stop the destruction of the lakes.
C) The level of the lakes in Country Casa has fallen by 20 centimeters per year over the last decade.
D) Camping at the lakes has never been prohibited.
E) Higher fees would actually deter a significant amount of people from visiting the lakes.

16.Governments have only one response to public criticism of socially necessary services: regulation of the activity of providing those services. But governments inevitably make the activity more expensive by regulating it, and that is particularly troublesome in these times of strained financial resources. However, since public criticism of child-care services has undermined all confidence in such services, and since such services are socially necessary, the government is certain to respond.
Which one of the following statements can be inferred from the passage?
A) The quality of child care will improve.
B) The cost of providing child-care services will increase.
C) The government will use funding to foster advances in child care.
D) If public criticism of policy is strongly voiced, the government is certain to respond.
E) If child-care services are not regulated, the cost of providing child care will not increase.

17.Consumers planning to buy recreational equipment tend to buy higher quality, more expensive equipment when the economy is strong than when it is weak. Hill and Dale is a business that sells high-quality, expensive camping and hiking equipment in Boravia. Although all the signs are that Boravia’s economy is now entering a period of sustained strength, the managers of the business do not expect a substantial increase in sales.
Which of the following, if true, would provide the strongest justification for the managers’ judgment?
A) A significant proportion of Hill and Dale’s sales are made to customers who enter the store in order to buy one particular item but, once there, find other items to buy as well.
B) In Boravia when the economy is strong, those who might otherwise go camping tend to take vacations overseas.
C) The economic upturn is likely to allow Boravia’s national parks, where most of the camping and hiking is
done, to receive extra funding to improve their visitor facilities.
D) Advances in materials technology have led to the development of hiking and camping equipment that is more comfortable and lightweight than before.
E) Many people in Boravia not only are committed to preserving the country’s wilderness areas but also are interested in spending some time in them.