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GMAT - Critical Reasoning - Test 32

in Critical Reasoning

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

1. Questions 4-5 refer to the following:

In a recent study of responses to visual images, researchers found that women most frequently gave the rating ?most attractive? to images of male faces that were more feminine in contour, and rated more masculine faces, on average, ?less attractive?. The researchers concluded that modern women prefer men who are less obviously masculine in their facial features.

The conclusion would be most severely weakened if which of the following were true?

A. Facial features are not the criterion that most women use to decide whether a man is attractive.
B. The visual images were computer generated composites of photographs and not pictures of actual men.
C. The rating scale was a ten point scale with most attractive scoring 1-2 and least attractive scoring 8-10.
D. Most popular male actors have the features that the study allocated to the more masculine category.
E. The faces with the more masculine features were all significantly older than those with the feminine features.

2. In general, a professional athlete is offered a million-dollar contract only if he or she has just completed an unusually successful season. However, a study shows that an athlete signing such a contract usually suffers a decline in performance the following season. This study supports the theory that a million-dollar contract tends to weaken an athlete's desire to excel by diminishing his or her economic incentive. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion drawn above?

A. On the average, athletes whose contracts call for relatively small salaries with possible bonuses for outstanding achievement perform better than other athletes.
B. Athletes are generally offered million-dollar contracts mainly because of the increased ticket sales and other revenues they generate.
C. Many professional athletes have careers marked by year-to-year fluctuations in their overall levels of performance.
D. On the average, higher-salaried athletes tend to have longer and more successful professional careers than do lower-salaried athletes.
E. Six of the ten leading batters in the National League this season signed million-dollar contracts during the off-season.

3. Manufacturers of household appliances are still urging the public to purchase food processors. The various manufacturers' advertisements all point out that the prices of these appliances are now lower than ever and that each food processor comes with a lifetime service warranty. In addition, many manufacturers offer sizable rebates to customers who purchase food processors within a given time period. With these incentives, the advertisements contend, people can hardly afford not to purchase food processors. Which answer choice is a logically prior issue that the manufacturers' advertisements fail to address?

A. Whether the cost of repairs to the food processors over the years will cancel out the savings currently being offered
B. Whether potential customers have enough uses for food processors to justify purchasing them
C. Whether the heads of the companies manufacturing food processors own food processors themselves
D. Whether the food processors currently being advertised will be outdated within the next five years
E. Whether accessories and replacement parts will be readily available at retail outlets

4. Each increase of 1 percent in real disposable personal income per capita will increase the share of the electorate for an incumbent by about 2.2 percentage points, other things being equal. Since 1952 there has been a decline in real disposable income during only one presidential election year. The incumbent lost that election. Which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the statements above?

A. When an incumbent runs for office, he or she is likely to win.
B. Political parties should take care to put forth a candidate who seems prosperous.
C. Presidential candidates should put their greatest efforts into improving their public image.
D. Because a presidential campaign requires the expenditure of large amounts of money, it frequently impoverishes a candidate and his or her supporters.
E. The outcome of a presidential election is substantially affected by factors other than the ideological positions of the candidates.

5. In 1846 about 80 percent of the towns in New York State banned the sale of alcoholic beverages. A recent article about the bans concludes that mid-nineteenth-century supporters of the temperance movement were not residents of remote rural areas, as has often been asserted; rather, they were concentrated in centers of economic opportunity. Which of the following, if true, best supports the conclusion reached in the article?

A. After 1846 the temperance movement grew rapidly and it flourished until the turn of the century.
B. Support for the ban on alcohol was strongest in New York towns where the economy was based on new, growing industries.
C. Many young New York State farmers supported the ban on alcohol.
D. The most adamant opponents of the ban included several affluent factory and mill owners.
E. In New York City, which was a commercial center in 1846, the sale of alcoholic beverages was not banned.

6. It is true that unionized women earn, on average, more than a third more than nonunionized women do. But the unionized women work in industries where wages happen to be high, their nonunionized counterparts in these industries earn about as much as they do. Therefore unionization does not raise women's wages. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

A. Besides wage increases, unions bargain for benefits such as medical insurance and workplace safety.
B. The most highly paid women are in executive positions, which are not unionized.
C. Wages in many industries vary from one part of the country to another, regardless of whether workers are unionized or not.
D. Nonunionized women in an industry often receive income increases as a result of increases won by unions representing women who work for other employers in the same industry.
E. The unionization of women who work for one employer in a given industry frequently prompts the unionization of women who work for other employers in the same industry.

7. The fact that several of the largest senior citizens' organizations are constituted almost exclusively of middle-class elderly people has led critics to question the seriousness of those organizations' commitment to speaking out on behalf of the needs of economically disadvantaged elderly people. Which of the following generalizations, if true, would help to substantiate the criticism implicit in the statement above?

A. The ideology of an organization tends reflect the traditional political climate of its locale.
B. The needs of disadvantaged elderly people differ in some ways from those of other disadvantaged groups within contemporary society.
C. Organized groups are better able to publicize their problems and seek redress than individuals acting alone.
D. Middle-class elderly people are more likely to join organizations than are economically disadvantaged elderly people.
E. People usually join organizations whose purpose is to further the economic, political, or social interests of their members.

8. Companies considering new cost-cutting manufacturing processes often compare the projected results of making the investment against the alternative of not making the investment with costs, selling prices, and share of market remaining constant. Which of the following, assuming that each is a realistic possibility, constitutes the most serious disadvantage for companies of using the method above for evaluating the financial benefit of new manufacturing processes?

A. The costs of materials required by the new process might not be known with certainty.
B. In several years interest rates might go down, reducing the interest costs of borrowing money to pay for the investment.
C. Some cost-cutting processes might require such expensive investments that there would be no net gain for many years, until the investment was paid for by savings in the manufacturing process.
D. Competitors that do invest in a new process might reduce their selling prices and thus take market share away from companies that do not.
E. The period of year chosen for averaging out the cost of the investment might be somewhat longer or shorter, thus affecting the result.

9. The value of a product is determined by the ratio of its quality to its price. The higher the value of a product, the better will be its competitive position. Therefore, either increasing the quality or lowering the price of a given product will increase the likelihood that consumer will select that product rather than a competing one. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion drawn above?

A. It is possible to increase both the quality and the price of a product without changing its competitive position.
B. For certain segments of the population of consumers, higher-priced brands of some product lines are preferred to the lower-priced brands.
C. Competing products often try to appeal to different segments of the population of consumers.
D. The competitive position of a product can be affected by such factors as advertising and brand loyalty.
E. Consumers' perceptions of the quality of a product are based on the actual quality of the product.

10. Male bowerbirds construct elaborately decorated nests, or bowers. Basing their judgment on the fact that different local populations of bowerbirds of the same species build bowers that exhibit different building and decorative styles, researchers have concluded that the bowerbirds' building styles are a culturally acquired, rather than a genetically transmitted, trait. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion drawn by the researchers?

A. There are more common characteristics than there are differences among the bower-building styles of the local bowerbird population that has been studied most extensively.
B. Young male bowerbirds are inept at bower-building and apparently spend years watching their elders before becoming accomplished in the local bower style.
C. The bowers of one species of bowerbird lack the towers and ornamentation characteristic of the bowers of most other species of bowerbird.
D. Bowerbirds are found only in New Guinea and Australia, where local populations of the birds apparently seldom have contact with one another.
E. It is well known that the song dialects of some songbirds are learned rather than transmitted genetically.