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GMAT - Critical Reasoning - Test 30

in Critical Reasoning

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

1. Economies in which a high percentage of resources are invested in research and development show greater growth in the long run than do those in which resources are channeled into consumption. Japanese workers spend a higher percentage of their income investing in research and development than do American workers. To grow as fast as Japan has in the past three decades, the United States must change the tax code in order to encourage savings and investment and discourage debt. Which of the following, if true, tends to weaken the argument?

A. Japanese research is more focused on consumers than is research by American firms.
B. Class mobility, highly valued in American culture, is encouraged by a growing rather than a stagnant economy.
C. Studies have shown that countries with high consumption rates prosper in the short run.
D. Proposed changes to the tax code could involve strict limits on the deductability of interest, and increased allowance for research.
E. Because a decreasing percentage of the United States is under 40, an age when savings are traditionally low, the savings rate will increase without changes to the tax code.

2. In an effort to go beyond resumes as tools in its search for executives, one leading company has resorted to interviewing the top candidates for a position all together in a single group. This technique is supposed to afford a direct comparison of the candidates with respect to some personal qualities that cannot be gleaned from a resume. Which of the following, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the value of the simultaneous interview technique?

A. Resumes do sometimes allow reliable inferences to be made about a candidate's personal qualities.
B. The simultaneous interview could become cumbersome if there were a great many candidates for a position.
C. The more perceptive the interviewer, the more revealing the simultaneous interview is apt to be.
D. There are certain personal qualities that only an extended simultaneous interview can bring out.
E. The simultaneous interview distorts each candidate's response style by inducing stresses unlike any an executive position induces.

3. Banning cigarette advertisements in the mass media will not reduce the number of young people who smoke. They know that cigarettes exist and they know how to get them. They do not need the advertisements to supply that information. The above argument would be most weakened if which of the following were true?

A. Seeing or hearing an advertisement for a product tends to increase people's desire for that product.
B. Banning cigarette advertisements in the mass media will cause an increase in advertisements in places where cigarettes are sold.
C. Advertisements in the mass media have been an exceedingly large part of the expenditures of the tobacco companies.
D. Those who oppose cigarette use have advertised against it in the mass media ever since cigarettes were found to be harmful.
E. Older people tend to be less influenced by mass-media advertisements than younger people tend to be.

4. In the United States in 1986, the average rate of violent crime in states with strict gun-control laws was 645 crimes per 100,000 persons?about 50 percent higher than the average rate in the eleven states where strict gun-control laws have never been passed. Thus one way to reduce violent crime is to repeal strict gun control laws. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above?

A. The annual rate of violent crime in states with strict gun-control laws has decreased since the passage of those laws.
B. In states with strict gun-control laws, few individuals are prosecuted for violating such laws.
C. In states without strict gun-control laws, many individuals have had no formal training in the use of firearms.
D. The annual rate of nonviolent crime is lower in states with strict gun-control laws than in states without such laws.
E. Less than half of the individuals who reside in states without strict gun-control laws own a gun.

5. To reduce costs, a company is considering a drastic reduction in the number of middle-level managers. This reduction would be accomplished by first offering early retirement to those 50 years of age or older with 15 years of service, and then by firing enough of the others to bring the overall reduction to 50 percent. Each of the following, assuming that it is a realistic possibility, is a possible disadvantage to the company of the plan EXCEPT:

A. Loyalty to the company will be reduced among those surviving the reduction, because they will perceive the status of even good managers as uncertain.
B. The restructuring of managerial jobs will allow business units to be adapted to fit a changing business environment.
C. The company will have a smaller pool of managers from which to choose in selecting future senior managers.
D. Some of the best managers, unsure of their security against being fired, will choose early retirement.
E. The increased workload of managers remaining with the company will subject them to stress that will eventually affect their performance.

6. Cable-television spokesperson: Subscriptions to cable television are a bargain in comparison to ?free? television. Remember that ?free? television is not really free. It is consumers, in the end, who pay for the costly advertising that supports ?free? television. Which of the following, if true, is most damaging to the position of the cable-television spokesperson?

A. Consumers who do not own television sets are less likely to be influenced in their purchasing decisions by television advertising than are consumers who own television sets.
B. Subscriptions to cable television include access to some public-television channels, which do not accept advertising.
C. For locations with poor television reception, cable television provides picture quality superior to that provided by free television.
D. There is as much advertising on many cable-television channels as there is on ?free? television channels.
E. Cable-television subscribers can choose which channels they wish to receive, and the fees vary accordingly.

7. Passengers must exit airplanes swiftly after accidents, since gases released following accidents are toxic to humans and often explode soon after being released. In order to prevent passenger deaths from gas inhalation, safety officials recommend that passengers be provided with smoke hoods that prevent inhalation of the gases. Which of the following, if true, constitutes the strongest reason not to require implementation of the safety officials' recommendation?

A. Test evacuations showed that putting on the smoke hoods added considerably to the overall time it took passengers to leave the cabin.
B. Some airlines are unwilling to buy the smoke hoods because they consider them to be prohibitively expensive.
C. Although the smoke hoods protect passengers from the toxic gases, they can do nothing to prevent the gases from igniting.
D. Some experienced flyers fail to pay attention to the safety instructions given on every commercial flight before takeoff.
E. In many airplane accidents, passengers who were able to reach emergency exits were overcome by toxic gases before they could exit the airplane.

8. A company is considering changing its policy concerning daily working hours. Currently, this company requires all employees to arrive at work at 8 a.m. The proposed policy would permit each employee to decide when to arrive?from as early as 6 a.m. to as late as 11 a.m. The adoption of this policy would be most likely to decrease employees' productivity if the employees' job functions required them to

A. work without interruption from other employees
B. consult at least once a day with employees from other companies
C. submit their work for a supervisor's eventual approval
D. interact frequently with each other throughout the entire workday
E. undertake projects that take several days to complete

9. The recent upheaval in the office-equipment retail business, in which many small firms have gone out of business, has been attributed to the advent of office equipment ?superstores? whose high sales volume keeps their prices low. This analysis is flawed, however, since even today the superstores control a very small share of the retail market. Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument that the analysis is flawed?

A. Most of the larger customers for office equipment purchase under contract directly from manufacturers and thus do not participate in the retail market.
B. The superstores' heavy advertising of their low prices has forced prices down throughout the retail market for office supplies.
C. Some of the superstores that only recently opened have themselves gone out of business.
D. Most of the office equipment superstores are owned by large retailing chains that also own stores selling other types of goods.
E. The growing importance of computers in most offices has changed the kind of office equipment retailers must stock.

10. Start-up companies financed by venture capitalist have a much lower failure rate than companies financed by other means. Source of financing, therefore, must be a more important causative factor in the success of a start-up company than are such factors as the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur, the quality of strategic planning, or the management structure of the company. Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

A. Venture capitalists tend to be more responsive than other sources of financing to changes in a start-up company's financial needs.
B. The strategic planning of a start-up company is a less important factor in the long-term success of the company than are the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur.
C. More than half of all new companies fall within five years.
D. The management structures of start-up companies are generally less formal than the management structures of ongoing businesses.
E. Venture capitalists base their decisions to fund start-up companies on such factors as the characteristics of the entrepreneur and quality of strategic planning of the company.