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GMAT - Critical Reasoning - Test 35

in Critical Reasoning

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

1. Psychological research indicates that college hockey and football players are more quickly moved to hostility and aggression than are college athletes in noncontact sports such as swimming. But the researchers' conclusion?that contact sports encourage and teach participants to be hostile and aggressive?is untenable. The football and hockey players were probably more hostile and aggressive to start with than the swimmers. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion drawn by the psychological researchers?

A. The football and hockey players became more hostile and aggressive during the season and remained so during the off-season, whereas there was no increase in aggressiveness among the swimmers.
B. The football and hockey players, but not the swimmers, were aware at the start of the experiment that they were being tested for aggressiveness.
C. The same psychological research indicated that the football and hockey players had a great respect for cooperation and team play, whereas the swimmers were most concerned with excelling as individual competitors.
D. The research studies were designed to include no college athletes who participated in both contact and noncontact sports.
E. Throughout the United States, more incidents of fan violence occur at baseball games than occur at hockey or football games.

2. Stronger patent laws are needed to protect inventions from being pirated. With that protection, manufacturers would be encouraged to invest in the development of new products and technologies. Such investment frequently results in an increase in a manufacturer's productivity. Which of the following conclusions can most properly be drawn from the information above?

A. Stronger patent laws tend to benefit financial institutions as well as manufacturers.
B. Increased productivity in manufacturing is likely to be accompanied by the creation of more manufacturing jobs.
C. Manufacturers will decrease investment in the development of new products and technologies unless there are stronger patent laws.
D. The weakness of current patent laws has been a cause of economic recession.
E. Stronger patent laws would stimulate improvements in productivity for many manufacturers.

3. Which of the following best completes the passage below? At large amusement parks, live shows are used very deliberately to influence crowd movements. Lunchtime performances relieve the pressure on a park's restaurants. Evening performances have a rather different purpose: to encourage visitors to stay for supper. Behind this surface divergence in immediate purpose there is the unified underlying goal of______

A. keeping the lines at the various rides short by drawing off part of the crowd
B. enhancing revenue by attracting people who come only for the live shows and then leave the park
C. avoiding as far as possible traffic jams caused by visitors entering or leaving the park
D. encouraging as many people as possible to come to the park in order to eat at the restaurants
E. utilizing the restaurants at optimal levels for as much of the day as possible

4. Toughened hiring standards have not been the primary cause of the present staffing shortage in public schools. The shortage of teachers is primarily caused by the fact that in recent years teachers have not experienced any improvements in working conditions and their salaries have not kept pace with salaries in other professions. Which of the following, if true, would most support the claims above?

A. Many teachers already in the profession would not have been hired under the new hiring standards.
B. Today more teachers are entering the profession with a higher educational level than in the past.
C. Some teachers have cited higher standards for hiring as a reason for the current staffing shortage.
D. Many teachers have cited low pay and lack of professional freedom as reasons for their leaving the profession.
E. Many prospective teachers have cited the new hiring standards as a reason for not entering the profession.

5. Airline: Newly developed collision-avoidance systems, although not fully tested to discover potential malfunctions, must be installed immediately in passenger planes. Their mechanical warnings enable pilots to avoid crashes. Pilots: Pilots will not fly in planes with collision-avoidance systems that are not fully tested. Malfunctioning systems could mislead pilots, causing crashes. The pilots' objection is most strengthened if which of the following is true?

A. It is always possible for mechanical devices to malfunction.
B. Jet engines, although not fully tested when first put into use, have achieved exemplary performance and safety records.
C. Although collision-avoidance systems will enable pilots to avoid some crashes, the likely malfunctions of the not-fully-tested systems will cause even more crashes.
D. Many airline collisions are caused in part by the exhaustion of overworked pilots.
E. Collision-avoidance systems, at this stage of development, appear to have worked better in passenger planes than in cargo planes during experimental flights made over a six-month period.

6. Country Y uses its scarce foreign-exchange reserves to buy scrap iron for recycling into steel. Although the steel thus produced earns more foreign exchange than it costs, that policy is foolish. Country Y's own territory has vast deposits of iron ore, which can be mined with minimal expenditure of foreign exchange. Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest support for Country Y's policy of buying scrap iron abroad?

A. The price of scrap iron on international markets rose significantly in 1987.
B. Country Y's foreign-exchange reserves dropped significantly in 1987.
C. There is virtually no difference in quality between steel produced from scrap iron and that produced from iron ore.
D. Scrap iron is now used in the production of roughly half the steel used in the world today, and experts predict that scrap iron will be used even more extensively in the future.
E. Furnaces that process scrap iron can be built and operated in Country Y with substantially less foreign exchange than can furnaces that process iron ore.

7. A company's personnel director surveyed employees about their satisfaction with the company's system for awarding employee performance ratings. The survey data indicated that employees who received high ratings were very satisfied with the system. The personnel director concluded from these data that the company's best-performing employees liked the system. The personnel director's conclusion assumes which of the following?

A. No other performance rating system is as good as the current system.
B. The company's best-performing employees received high ratings.
C. Employees who received low ratings were dissatisfied with the system.
D. Employees who receive high ratings from a performance-rating system will like that system.
E. The company's best-performing employees were motivated to perform well by the knowledge that they would receive performance ratings.

8. Low-income families are often unable to afford as much child care as they need. One government program would award low-income families a refund on the income taxes they pay of as much as $1,000 for each child under age four. This program would make it possible for all low-income families with children under age four to obtain more child care than they otherwise would have been able to afford. Which of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the claim that the program would make it possible for all low-income families to obtain more child care?

A. The average family with children under age four spends more than $1,000 a year on child care.
B. Some low-income families in which one of the parents is usually available to care for children under age four may not want to spend their income tax refund on child care.
C. The reduction in government revenues stemming from the income tax refund will necessitate cuts in other government programs, such as grants for higher education.
D. Many low-income families with children under age four do not pay any income taxes because their total income is too low to be subject to such taxes.
E. Income taxes have increased substantially over the past twenty years, reducing the money that low-income families have available to spend on child care.

9. In 1960, 10 percent of every dollar paid in automobile insurance premiums went to pay costs arising from injuries incurred in car accidents. In 1990, 50 percent of every dollar paid in automobile insurance premiums went toward such costs, despite the fact that cars were much safer in 1990 than in 1960. Which of the following, if true, best explains the discrepancy outlined above?

A. There were fewer accidents in 1990 than in 1960.
B. On average, people drove more slowly in 1990 than in 1960.
C. Cars grew increasingly more expensive to repair over the period in question.
D. The price of insurance increased more rapidly than the rate of inflation between 1960 and 1990.
E. Health-care costs rose sharply between 1960 and 1990.

10. A public-service advertisement advises that people who have consumed alcohol should not drive until they can do so safely. In a hospital study, however, subjects questioned immediately after they consumed alcohol underestimated the time necessary to regain their driving ability. This result indicates that many people who drink before driving will have difficulty following the advertisement's advice. Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument above?

A. Many people, if they plan to drink alcohol, make arrangements beforehand for a nondrinker to drive them home.
B. The subjects in the hospital study generally rated their abilities more conservatively than would people drinking alcohol outside a hospital setting.
C. Some people refrain from drinking if they will have to drive to get home afterward.
D. The subjects in the hospital study were also questioned about the time necessary to regain abilities that do not play an important role in driving safely.
E. Awareness of the public-service advertisement is higher among the general population than it was among the subjects in the hospital study.