VT 54 - CRITICAL REASONING

1. Nearly one in three subscribers to Financial Forecaster is

a millionaire, and over half are in top management.

Shouldn’t you subscribe to Financial Forecaster now?

A reader who is neither a millionaire nor in top manage­ment would be most likely to act in accordance with the advertisement’s suggestion if he or she drew which of the following questionable conclusions invited by the advertisement?

(A) Among finance-related periodicals. Financial Forecaster provides the most detailed financial information.

(B) Top managers cannot do their jobs properly without reading Financial Forecaster.

(C) The advertisement is placed where those who will be likely to read it are millionaires.

(D) The subscribers mentioned were helped to become millionaires or join top management by reading Financial Forecaster.

(E) Only those who will in fact become millionaires, or at least top managers, will read the advertisement.

Questions 2-3 are based on the following.

Contrary to the charges made by some of its opponents, the provisions of the new deficit-reduction law for indiscriminate cuts in the federal budget are justified. Opponents should remember that the New Deal pulled this country out of great economic troubles even though some of its programs were later found to be unconstitutional.

2. The author’s method of attacking the charges of certain opponents of the new deficit-reduction law is to

(A) attack the character of the opponents rather than their claim

(B) imply an analogy between the law and some New Deal programs

(C) point out that the opponents’ claims imply a dilemma

(D) show that the opponents’ reasoning leads to an absurd conclusion

(E) show that the New Deal also called for indiscriminate cuts in the federal budget

3. The opponents could effectively defend their position against the author’s strategy by pointing out that

(A) the expertise of those opposing the law is outstanding

(B) the lack of justification for the new law does not imply that those who drew it up were either inept or immoral

(C) the practical application of the new law will not entail indiscriminate budget cuts

(D) economic troubles present at the time of the New Deal were equal in severity to those that have led to the present law

(E) the fact that certain flawed programs or laws have improved the economy does not prove that every such program can do so

4. In Millington, a city of 50,000 people, Mercedes Pedrosa, a realtor, calculated that a family with Millington’s median family income, $28,000 a year, could afford to buy Millington’s median-priced $77,000 house. This calculation was based on an 11.2 percent mortgage interest rate and on the realtor’s assumption that a family could only afford to pay up to 25 percent of its income for housing.

Which of the following corrections of a figure appearing in the passage above, if it were the only correction that needed to be made, would yield a new calculation showing that even incomes below the median family income would enable families in Millington to afford Millington’s median-priced house?

(A) Millington’s total population was 45,000 people.

(B) Millington’s median annual family income was $27,000

(C) Millington’s median-priced house cost $80,000

(D) The rate at which people in Millington had to pay mortgage interest was only 10 percent.

(E) Families in Millington could only afford to pay up to 22 percent of their annual income for housing.

5. 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.

6.Ross: The profitability of Company X, restored to private
ownership five years ago, is clear evidence that
businesses will always fare better under private than
under public ownership.

Julia: Wrong. A close look at the records shows that X has
been profitable since the appointment of a first-class
manager, which happened while X was still in the
pubic sector.

Which of the following best describes the weak point in Ross’s claim on which Julia’s response focuses?

(A) The evidence Ross cites comes from only a single observed case, that of Company X.

(B) The profitability of Company X might be only temporary.

(C) Ross’s statement leaves open the possibility that the cause he cites came after the effect he attributes to it.

(D) No mention is made of companies that are partly government owned and partly privately owned.

(E) No exact figures are given for the current profits of Company X.

7. 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.

8. 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

9.James weighs more than Kelly.
Luis weighs more than Mark.
Mark weighs less than Ned.
Kelly and Ned are exactly the same weight.

If the information above is true, which of the following must also be true?

(A) Luis weighs more than Ned.

(B) Luis weighs more than James.

(C) Kelly weighs less than Luis.

(D) James weighs more than Mark

(E) Kelly weighs less than Mark.

Questions 10-11 are based on the following.

Partly because of bad weather, but also partly because some major pepper growers have switched to high-priced cocoa, world production of pepper has been running well below worldwide sales for three years. Pepper is consequently in relatively short supply. The price of pepper has soared in response: it now equals that of cocoa.

10. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

(A) Pepper is a profitable crop only if it is grown on a large scale.

(B) World consumption of pepper has been unusually high for three years.

(C) World production of pepper will return to previous levels once normal weather returns.

(D) Surplus stocks of pepper have been reduced in the past three years.

(E) The profits that the growers of pepper have made in the past three years have been unprecedented.