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GMAT - Critical Reasoning - Test 8

in Critical Reasoning

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

1. Don's, a chain of supermarkets, has entered into an agreement in which Rose Computers will sell Don's an unlimited number of its least expensive PC's at one-fourth the regular wholesale price. In return, Don's has agreed to purchase all of its scanners and other electronic information-processing equipment from Rose or from Omicron, Rose Computers' parent company, for the next ten years. Don's will offer a Rose PC free to any school that turns in Don's register receipts totaling $100,000 within the next six months. The vice-president in charge of advertising for Don's expects that the computer giveaway will obviate the need for a massive new advertising campaign for the next six months and that Don's can make up the expenditures for the PC's by writing them off its income taxes as charitable donations. The plans formulated by Don's assume each of the following EXCEPT:

A. The prices that Rose or Omicron charges Don's for information-processing equipment over the next ten years will be lower than those charged by other companies.
B. The tax laws will not be changed to exclude or lessen the value of charitable donations as tax write-offs.
C. Schools will be sufficiently attracted by Don's computer giveaway offer that teachers will urge students to shop at Don's.
D. Rose will be able to supply Don's with a sufficient number of PC's to meet the demand generated by schools that collect Don's receipts totaling $100,000.
E. The effect of the computer giveaway offer on Don's business will be comparable to that of a major advertising campaign.

2. In the past year, there has been a large drop in the number of new cars sold, due to harsh economic conditions in the marketplace and high taxes. At the same time, the average price paid for a new car has risen dramatically. Which of the following, if true, best explains the increase in the average price of a new car?

A. The price of used cars has climbed steadily over the past ten years.
B. There will be a tax reduction later in the year which is expected to aid moderate and low income families.
C. The market for expensive car has been unaffected by the current economic conditions.
D. Economic conditions are expected to get significantly worse before the end of the year.
E. Low demand for trucks and vans has led to lower production in the factories.

3. For over fifty years, the ocean-freight industry worked to make ocean freighters faster and to lower their fuel consumption. Despite considerable success, the economics of the industry grew worse, until the industry was almost dead. What was wrong was an incongruity between assumptions and realities. The real costs came, not from time spent at sea, but from time spent in port during loading and unloading. Which of the following actions would be most likely to lead to a solution of the problem faced by the ocean-freight industry, as it is analyzed in the passage?

A. Developing a ship's engine that runs on a cheaper type of fuel than that traditionally used by ocean freighters
B. Developing a ship with accessible cargo compartments that can be mechanically loaded and unloaded very rapidly
C. Developing a ship whose freight capacity relative to the ship's total volume is much larger than that of any existing ship
D. Implementing a system to ensure that ocean freighters are loaded to capacity whenever they leave a port
E. Implementing a marketing plan that focuses on routes that are known to be least threatened by unfavorable weather, thus permitting rapid trips and reliable arrival times

4. The government should stop permitting tobacco companies to subtract advertising expenses from their revenues in calculating taxable income. Tobacco companies would then have to pay more taxes. As a consequence, they would raise the prices of their products and this price increase would raise the prices of their products and this price increase would discourage tobacco use. Which of the following is an additional premise required by the argument above?

A. Tobacco companies would not offset the payment of extra taxes by reducing costs in other areas.
B. Tobacco companies would not continue to advertise if they were forced to pay higher taxes.
C. People would not continue to buy tobacco products if these products were no longer advertised.
D. The money the government would gain as a result of the increase in tobacco companies' taxable income would be used to educate the public about the dangers of tobacco use.
E. The increase in taxes paid by tobacco companies would be equal to the additional income generated by raising prices.

5. 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.

6. Sales taxes tend to be regressive, affecting poor people more severely than wealthy people. When all purchases of consumer goods are taxed at a fixed percentage of the purchase price, poor people pay a larger proportion of their income in sales taxes than wealthy people do. It can be correctly inferred on the basis of the statements above that which of the following is true?

A. Poor people constitute a larger proportion of the taxpaying population than wealthy people do.
B. Poor people spend a larger proportion of their income on purchases of consumer goods than wealthy people do.
C. Wealthy people pay, on average, a larger amount of sales taxes than poor people do.
D. The total amount spent by all poor people on purchases of consumer goods exceeds the total amount spent by all wealthy people on consumer goods.
E. The average purchase price of consumer goods bought by wealthy people is higher than that of consumer goods bought by poor people.

7. It is true that it is against international law to sell plutonium to countries that do not yet have nuclear weapons. But if United States companies do not do so, companies in other countries will. Which of the following is most like the argument above in its logical structure?

A. It is true that it is against the police department's policy to negotiate with kidnappers. But if the police want to prevent loss of life, they must negotiate in some cases.
B. It is true that it is illegal to refuse to register for military service. But there is a long tradition in the United States of conscientious objection to serving in the armed forces.
C. It is true that it is illegal for a government official to participate in a transaction in which there is an apparent conflict of interest. But if the facts are examined carefully, it will clearly be seen that there was no actual conflict of interest in the defendant's case.
D. It is true that it is against the law to burglarize people's homes. But someone else certainly would have burglarized that house if the defendant had not done so first.
E. It is true that company policy forbids supervisors to fire employees without two written warnings. But there have been many supervisors who have disobeyed this policy.

8. A group of children of various ages was read stories in which people caused harm, some of those people doing so intentionally, and some accidentally. When asked about appropriate punishments for those who had caused harm, the younger children, unlike the older ones, assigned punishments that did not vary according to whether the harm was done intentionally or accidentally. Younger children, then, do not regard people's intentions as relevant to punishment. Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion above?

A. In interpreting these stories, the listeners had to draw on a relatively mature sense of human psychology in order to tell whether harm was produced intentionally or accidentally.
B. In these stories, the severity of the harm produced was clearly stated.
C. Younger children are as likely to produce harm unintentionally as are older children.
D. The older children assigned punishment in a way that closely resembled the way adults had assigned punishment in a similar experiment.
E. The younger children assigned punishments that varied according to the severity of the harm done by the agents in the stories.

9. Crimes are mainly committed by the young, and for this reason merely increasing the number of police officers or expenditures on police services has little effect on reducing the crime rate. In fact, the only factor associated with a crime-rate drop is a decrease in the number of people in the community aged fourteen to thirty. The findings above can best serve as part of an argument against

A. the likelihood that any law enforcement program will be effective in reducing the crime rate within a short time
B. increasing prison terms for young people found guilty of crimes
C. introducing compulsory military conscription for people aged seventeen to nineteen
D. raising the age at which students are permitted to leave school
E. a community's plan to increase the number of recreational and educational activities in which young adults can participate

10. A publisher is now providing university professors with the option of ordering custom textbooks for their courses. The professors can edit out those chapters of a book they are not interested in and add material of their own choosing. The widespread use of the option mentioned above is LEAST likely to contribute to fulfilling which of the following educational objectives?

A. Coverage of material relevant to a particular student body's specific needs
B. Offering advanced elective courses that pursue in-depth investigation of selected topics in a field
C. Ensuring that students nationwide engaged in a specific course of study are uniformly exposed to a basic set of readings
D. Making the textbooks used in university courses more satisfactory from the individual teacher's point of view
E. Keeping students' interest in a course by offering lively, well-written reading assignments