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GMAT

GMAT - Critical Reasoning - Test 14

in Critical Reasoning

Read the passage and choose the option that best answer the question.

1. Critics of sales seminars run by outside consultants point out that since 1987, revenues of vacuum cleaner companies whose employees attended consultant-led seminars were lower than revenues of vacuum cleaner companies whose employees did not attend such seminars. The critics charge that for vacuum cleaner companies, the sales seminars are ill conceived and a waste of money. Which of the following, if true, is the most effective challenge to the critics of sales seminars?

A. Those vacuum cleaner companies whose sales were highest prior to 1987 are the only companies that did not send employees to the seminars.
B. Vacuum cleaner companies that have sent employees to sales seminars since 1987 experienced a greater drop in sales than they had prior to 1987.
C. The cost of vacuum cleaner sales seminars run by outside consultants has risen dramatically since 1987.
D. The poor design of vacuum cleaner sales seminars is not the only reason for their ineffectiveness.
E. Since 1987, sales of vacuum cleaners have risen twenty percent.

2. While Governor Verdant has been in office, the state's budget has increased by an average of 6 percent each year. While the previous governor was in office, the state's budget increased by an average of 11.5 percent each year. Obviously, the austere budgets during Governor Verdant's term have caused the slowdown in the growth in state spending. Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion drawn above?

A. The rate of inflation in the state averaged 10 percent each year during the previous governor's term in office and 3 percent each year during Verdant's term.
B. Both federal and state income tax rates have been lowered considerably during Verdant's term in office.
C. In each year of Verdant's term in office, the state's budget has shown some increase in spending over the previous year.
D. During Verdant's term in office, the state has either discontinued or begun to charge private citizens for numerous services that the state offered free to citizens during the previous governor's term.
E. During the previous governor's term in office, the state introduced several so-called ?austerity? budgets intended to reduce the growth in state spending.

3. Reviewing historical data, medical researchers in California found that counties with the largest number of television sets per capita have had the lowest incidence of a serious brain disease, mosquito-borne encephalitis. The researchers have concluded that people in these counties stay indoors more and thus avoid exposure to the disease. The researchers' conclusion would be most strengthened if which of the following were true?

A. Programs designed to control the size of disease-bearing mosquito populations have not affected the incidence of mosquito borne encephalitis.
B. The occupations of county residents affect their risk of exposure to mosquito-borne encephalitis more than does television-watching.
C. The incidence of mosquito-borne encephalitis in counties with the largest number of television sets per capita is likely to decrease even further.
D. The more time people in a county spend outdoors, the greater their awareness of the dangers of mosquito-borne encephalitis.
E. The more television sets there are per capita in a county, the more time the average county resident spends watching television.

4. Continuous indoor fluorescent light benefits the health of hamsters with inherited heart disease. A group of them exposed to continuous fluorescent light survived twenty-five percent longer than a similar group exposed instead to equal periods of indoor fluorescent light and of darkness. The method of the research described above is most likely to be applicable in addressing which of the following questions?

A. Can industrial workers who need to see their work do so better by sunlight or by fluorescent light?
B. Can hospital lighting be improved to promote the recovery of patients?
C. How do deep-sea fish survive in total darkness?
D. What are the inherited illnesses to which hamsters are subject?
E. Are there plants that require specific periods of darkness in order to bloom?

5. Lists of hospitals have been compiled showing which hospitals have patient death rates exceeding the national average. The data have been adjusted to allow for differences in the ages of patients. Each of the following, if true, provides a good logical ground for hospitals to object to interpreting rank on these lists as one of the indices of the quality of hospital care EXCEPT:

A. Rank order might indicate insignificant differences, rather than large differences, in numbers of patient deaths.
B. Hospitals that keep patients longer are likely to have higher death rates than those that discharge patients earlier but do not record deaths of patients at home after discharge.
C. Patients who are very old on admission to a hospital are less likely than younger patients to survive the same types of illnesses or surgical procedures.
D. Some hospitals serve a larger proportion of low-income patients, who tend to be more seriously ill when admitted to a hospital.
E. For-profit hospitals sometimes do not provide intensive-care units and other expensive services for very sick patients but refer or transfer such patients to other hospitals.

6. A cost-effective solution to the problem of airport congestion is to provide high-speed ground transportation between major cities lying 200 to 500 miles apart. The successful implementation of this plan would cost far less than expanding existing airports and would also reduce the number of airplanes clogging both airports and airways. Which of the following, if true, could proponents of the plan above most appropriately cite as a piece of evidence for the soundness of their plan?

A. An effective high-speed ground-transportation system would require major repairs to many highways and mass-transit improvements.
B. One-half of all departing flights in the nation's busiest airport head for a destination in a major city 225 miles away.
C. The majority of travelers departing from rural airports are flying to destinations in cities over 600 miles away.
D. Many new airports are being built in areas that are presently served by high-speed ground-transportation systems.
E. A large proportion of air travelers are vacationers who are taking long-distance flights.

7. The interview is an essential part of a successful hiring program because, with it, job applicants who have personalities that are unsuited to the requirements of the job will be eliminated from consideration. The argument above logically depends on which of the following assumptions?

A. A hiring program will be successful if it includes interviews.
B. The interview is a more important part of a successful hiring program than is the development of a job description.
C. Interviewers can accurately identify applicants whose personalities are unsuited to the requirements of the job.
D. The only purpose of an interview is to evaluate whether job applicants' personalities are suited to the requirements of the job.
E. The fit of job applicants' personalities to the requirements of the job was once the most important factor in making hiring decisions.

8. The school board has determined that it is necessary to reduce the number of teachers on the staff. Rather than deciding which teachers will be laid off on the basis of seniority, the school board plans to lay off the least effective teachers first. The school board's plan assumes that

A. there is a way of determining the effectiveness of teachers
B. what one individual defines as effective teaching will not be defined as effective teaching by another individual
C. those with the most experience teaching are the best teachers
D. those teachers who are paid the most are generally the most qualified
E. some teachers will be more effective working with some students than with other students

9. Some governments have tried to make alcohol and tobacco less attractive to consumers by regulating what can be shown in advertisements for these products, rather than by banning advertising of them altogether. However, the need to obey the letter of these restrictions has actually stimulated advertisers to create advertisements that are more inventive and humorous than they were prior to the restrictions' introduction. which of the following, if true, would, in conjunction with the statements above, best support the conclusion that the government policy described above fails to achieve its objective?

A. Because of the revenues gained from the sale of alcohol and tobacco, governments have no real interest in making these products less attractive to consumers.
B. Advertisers tend to create inventive and humorous advertisements only if they have some particular reason to do so.
C. Banning advertising of alcohol and tobacco is a particularly effective way of making these products less attractive to consumers.
D. With the policy in place, advertisements for alcohol and tobacco have become far more inventive and humorous than advertisements for other kinds of products.
E. The more inventive an advertisement is, the more attractive it makes the advertised product appear.

10. It is widely assumed that a museum is helped financially when a generous patron donates a potential exhibit. In truth, however, donated objects require storage space, which is not free, and routine conservation, which is rather expensive. Therefore, such gifts exacerbate rather than lighten the demands made on a museum's financial resources. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

A. To keep patrons well disposed, a museum will find it advisable to put at least some donated objects on exhibit rather than merely in storage.
B. The people who are most likely to donate valuable objects to a museum are also the people who are most likely to make cash gifts to it.
C. A museum cannot save money by resorting to cheap storage under less than adequate conditions, because so doing would drive up the cost of conservation.
D. Patrons expect a museum to keep donated objects in its possession rather than to raise cash by selling them.
E. Objects donated by a patron to a museum are often of such importance that the museum would be obliged to add them to its collection through purchase if necessary.