Free GMAT SECTION 3: VERBAL ABILITY Exam Braindumps
GMAT Section 3: Verbal Ability Questions 236–240 (page: 49)

The postal service is badly mismanaged. Forty years ago, first-class letter delivery cost only three cents. Since then, the price has increased nearly tenfold, with an actual decrease in the speed and reliability of service.

Each of the following statements, if true, would tend to weaken the argument above EXCEPT:

When the government of a nation announced recently that a leader of the nation’s political opposition had died of a mysterious illness in prison, few seasoned observers of the regime were surprised. As the police captain in an old movie remarked when asked about the condition of a prisoner, “We’re trying to decide whether he committed suicide or died trying to escape.”

The statements above invite which of the following conclusions?

In the industrialized nations, the last century has witnessed a shortening of the average workday from twelve hours or longer to less than eight hours. Mindful of this enormous increase in leisure time over the past century, many people assume that the same trend has obtained throughout history, and that, therefore, prehistoric humans must have labored incessantly for their very survival.
We cannot, of course, directly test this assumption. However, a study of primitive peoples of today suggests a different conclusion. The Mbuti of central Africa, for instance, spend only a few hours each day in hunting, gathering, and tending to other economic necessities. The rest of their time is spent as they choose. The implication is that the short workday is not peculiar to industrialized societies. Rather, both the extended workday of 1880 and the shorter workday of today are products of different stages of the continuing process of industrialization.

Which of the following inferences about industrialization is best supported by the passage above?

In the industrialized nations, the last century has witnessed a shortening of the average workday from twelve hours or longer to less than eight hours. Mindful of this enormous increase in leisure time over the past century, many people assume that the same trend has obtained throughout history, and that, therefore, prehistoric humans must have labored incessantly for their very survival.
We cannot, of course, directly test this assumption. However, a study of primitive peoples of today suggests a different conclusion. The Mbuti of central Africa, for instance, spend only a few hours each day in hunting, gathering, and tending to other economic necessities. The rest of their time is spent as they choose. The implication is that the short workday is not peculiar to industrialized societies. Rather, both the extended workday of 1880 and the shorter workday of today are products of different stages of the continuing process of industrialization.

Which of the following, if true, would most greatly strengthen the argument made in the passage above?

Gloria: Those who advocate tuition tax credits for parents whose children attend private schools maintain that people making no use of a government service should not be forced to pay for it. Yet those who choose to buy bottled water rather than drink water from the local supply are not therefore exempt from paying taxes to maintain the local water supply.
Roger: Your argument is illogical. Children are required by law to attend school. Since school attendance is a matter not of choice, but of legal requirement, it is unfair for the government to force some parents to pay for it twice.

Which of the following responses by Gloria would best refute Roger’s charge that her argument is illogical?