20-07-2021 Answers

 1. The average normal infant born in the United States weighs between twelve and fourteen pounds at the age of three months. Therefore, if a three-month-old child weighs only ten pounds, its weight gain has been below the United States average.

Which of the following indicates a flaw in the reasoning above?

Answer: Average weight gain is not the same as average weight.

2. Frobisher, a sixteenth-century English explorer, had soil samples from Canada's Kodlunarn Island examined for gold content. Because high gold content was reported, Elizabeth I funded two mining expeditions. Neither expedition found any gold there. Modern analysis of the island's soil indicates a very low gold content. Thus the methods used to determine the gold content of Frobisher's samples must have been inaccurate.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

Answer: Gold was not added to the soil samples collected by Frobisher before the samples were examined.

3. Mud from a lake on an uninhabited wooded island in northern Lake Superior contains toxic chemicals, including toxaphene, a banned pesticide for cotton that previously was manufactured and used, not in nearby regions of Canada or the northern United States, but in the southern United States. No dumping has occurred on the island. The island lake is sufficiently elevated that water from Lake Superior does not reach it.

The statements above, if true, most strongly support which of the following hypotheses?

Answer: The toxaphene was carried to the island in the atmosphere by winds.

4. In the first half of this year, from January to June, about three million videocassette recorders were sold. This number is only 35 percent of the total number of videocassette recorders sold last year. Therefore, total sales of videocassette recorders will almost certainly be lower for this year than they were for last year.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the conclusion above?

Answer: Typically, over 70 percent of the sales of videocassette recorders made in a year occur in the months of November and December

5. Samples from a ceramic vase found at a tomb in Sicily prove that the vase was manufactured in Greece. Since the occupant of the tomb died during the reign of a Sicilian ruler who lived 2,700 years ago, the location of the vase indicates that there was trade between Sicily and Greece 2,700 years ago.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

Answer: The vase that was found at the Sicilian tomb was not placed there many generations later by descendants of the occupant of the tomb.

6. In malaria-infested areas, many children tend to suffer several bouts of malaria before becoming immune to the disease. Clearly, what must be happening is that those children's immune systems are only weakly stimulated by any single exposure to the malaria parasite and need to be challenged several times to produce an effective immune response.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the explanatory hypothesis?

Answer: There are several distinct strains of malaria and the body's immune response to any one of them does not protect it against the others.

7. An advertisement designed to convince readers of the great durability of automobiles manufactured by the Deluxe Motor Car Company cites as evidence the fact that over half of all automobiles built by the company since 1970 are still on the road today, compared to no more than a third for any other manufacturer.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the advertisement's argument?

Answer: The number of automobiles built by Deluxe each year has not increased sharply since 1970.

8. During the Second World War, about 375,000 civilians died in the United States and about 408,000 members of the United States armed forces died overseas. On the basis of those figures, it can be concluded that it was not much more dangerous to be overseas in the armed forces during the Second World War than it was to stay at home as a civilian.

Which of the following would reveal most clearly the absurdity of the conclusion drawn above?

Answer: Comparing death rates per thousand members of each group rather than comparing total numbers of deaths

9. In several cities, the government is going ahead with ambitious construction projects despite the high office-vacancy rates in those cities. The vacant offices, though available for leasing, unfortunately do not meet the requirements for the facilities needed, such as court houses and laboratories. The government, therefore, is not guilty of any fiscal westefulness.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument above depends?

Answer: Adaptation of vacant office space to meet the government's requirements, if possible, would not make leasing such office space a more cost-effective alternative to new construction.

10. A program instituted in a particular state allows parents to prepay their children's future college tuition at current rates. The program then pays the tuition annually for the child at any of the state's public colleges in which the child enrolls. Parents should participate in the program as a means of decreasing the cost for their children's college education.

Which of the following, if true, is the most appropriate reason for parents not to participate in the program?

Answer: The amount of money accumulated by putting the prepayment funds in an interest-bearing account today will be greater than the total cost of tuition for any of the public colleges when the child enrolls.

11. It is better for the environment if as much of all packaging as possible is made from materials that are biodegradable in landfills. Therefore, it is always a change for the worse to replace packaging made from paper or cardboard with packaging made from plastics that are not biodegradable in landfills.

Which of the following, if true, constitutes the strongest objection to the argument above?

Answer: The paper and cardboard used in packaging are usually not biodegradable in landfills.

12. Of the many over-the-counter medications marketed for the relief of sinus headache, SineEase costs the least per dose. And SineEase is as effective per dose as the most effective of those other medications. So for relief from sinus headaches, SineEase is the best buy.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

Answer: An over-the-counter medication that is marketed for the relief of symptoms of head cold is identical in composition to SineEase but costs less per dose.

13. Last year in the United States, women who ran for state and national offices were about as likely to win as men. However, only about fifteen percent of the candidates for these offices were women. Therefore, the reason there are so few women who win elections for these offices is not that women have difficulty winning elections but that so few women want to run.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion given?

Answer: Many more women than men who want to run for state and national offices do not because they cannot get adequate funding for their campaigns.

14. The school board has determined that it is necessary to reduce the number of teachers on the staff. Rather than deciding which teachers will be laid off on the basis of seniority, the school board plans to lay off the least effective teachers first. The school board's plan assumes that

Answer: there is a way of determining the effectiveness of teachers

15. Calories consumed in excess of those with which the body needs to be provided to maintain its weight are normally stored as fat and the body gains weight. Alcoholic beverages are laden with calories. However, those people who regularly drink two or three alcoholic beverages a day and thereby exceed the caloric intake necessary to maintain their weight do not in general gain weight.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy?

Answer: Excess calories consumed by people who regularly drink two or three alcoholic beverages a day tend to be dissipated as heat.