Directions: choose the right answer for each of the following questions.
5 questions in 10 mins
1.Columnist: There are several symptoms of depression. One symptom is sleeping more than 12 hours a day. Therefore, you should buy an alarm clock so that you do not sleep more than 8 hours a day to cure your depression.
If the article also noted that excessive sleeping is caused by reduced serotonin levels resulting from depression, then which of the arguments below best describes the logical flaw in the columnist’s reasoning?
(A) Sleep has many beneficial effects.
(B) The columnist has mistaken an argument for an explanation.
(C) The columnist has mistaken a premise for a conclusion.
(D) The columnist has failed to consider that an alarm clock may not be a reliable means of assuring a person wakes (up.
E) The columnist has mistaken a symptom for a cause.
2.For the safety-conscious Swedish market, a United States manufacturer of desktop computers developed a special display screen that produces a much weaker electromagnetic field surrounding the user than do ordinary screens. Despite an advantage in this respect over its competitors, the manufacturer is introducing the screen into the United States market without advertising it as a safety improvement.
Which of the following, if true, provides a rationale for the manufacturer’s approach to advertising the screen in the United States?
(A) Many more desktop computers are sold each year in the United States market than are sold in the Swedish market.
(B) The manufacturer does not want its competitors to become aware of the means by which the company has achieved this advance in technology.
(C) Most business and scientific purchasers of desktop computers expect to replace such equipment eventually as better technology becomes available on the market.
(D) An emphasis on the comparative safety of the new screen would call into question the safety of the many screens the manufacturer has already sold in the United States.
(E) Concern has been expressed in the United States over the health effects of the large electromagnetic fields surrounding electric power lines.
3.Most doctors recommend that pregnant women eat a nutritious diet to promote the health of their babies. However, most babies who are born to women who ate nutritious diets while pregnant still develop at least one medical problem in their first year.
Which one of the following, if true, does most to resolve the apparent discrepancy in the information above?
(A) Women who regularly eat a nutritious diet while pregnant tend to eat a nutritious diet while breast-feeding.
(B) Most of the babies born to women who did not eat nutritious diet while pregnant develop no serious medical problems later in childhood.
(C) Babies of women who did not eat nutritious diets while pregnant tend to have more medical problems in their first year than do other babies.
(D) Medical problems that develop in the first year of life tend to be more serious than those that develop later in childhood.
(E) Many of the physicians who initially recommended that pregnant women consume nutritious diets have only recently reaffirmed their recommendation.
4.The mayor boasts that the average ambulance turnaround time, the time from summons to delivery of the patient, has been reduced this year for top-priority emergencies. This is a serious misrepresentation. This “reduction” was produced simply by redefining “top priority.” Such emergencies used to include gunshot wounds and electrocutions, the most time-consuming cases. Now they are limited strictly to heart attacks and strokes.
Which one of the following would strengthen the author’s conclusion that it was the redefinition of “top priority” that produced the reduction in turnaround time?
(A) The number of heart attacks and strokes declined this year.
(B) The mayor redefined the city’s financial priorities this year.
(C) Experts disagree with the mayor’s definition of “top-priority emergency.”
(D) Other cities include gunshot wound cases in their category o top-priority emergencies.
(E) One half of all of last year’s top-priority emergencies were gunshot wounds and electrocution cases.
5. Several ancient Greek texts provide accounts of people being poisoned by honey that texts suggest was made from the nectar of rhododendron or oleander plants. Honey made from such nectar can cause the effects the texts describe, but only if eaten fresh, since the honey loses its toxicity within a few weeks of being made. In Greece, rhododendrons and oleander bloom only in springtime, when they are the predominant sources of nectar.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly support the accounts of Greek texts?
(A) There are no plants that Greece in ancient times that produce more nectar than rhododendrons or oleanders does.
(B) In areas where neither rhododendrons nor oleanders grow, honey is never poisonous
(C) A beehive’s honeycomb cannot have some sections that contain toxic honey and other sections that contain nontoxic honey.
(D) The incidents of honey poisoning that are related in the ancient texts occurred in the springtime or in the early summer.
(E) Whether the honey in a beehive is toxic depends solely on which plants were the source of that was used to make the honey.
Answer key:
1.E 2. D 3.C 4.E 5.D
