It is not good for a university to have class sizes that are very large or very small, or to have professors with teaching loads that are very light or very heavy. After all, crowded classes and overworked faculty cripple the institution's ability to recruit and retain both qualified students and faculty.Which one of the following, if added as a premise to the argument, most helps to justify its conclusion?
Answer(s): C
This Strengthen question stem takes a strange form. As with any Strengthen/Weaken question, we must first identify the evidence and conclusion. The conclusion is the entire first sentence and can be considered as four separate conclusions:1) Very large classes are bad for a university.2) Very small classes are bad for a university.3) Very light teaching loads are bad for a university.4) Very heavy teaching loads are bad for a university.The evidence, however, only relates to points (1) and (4). We should therefore expect the correct answer to address points (2) and/or (3). Choice C., in shoring up the argument, explains the problem with small classes and light teaching loads, points (2) and (3).
Sales manager: The highest priority should be given to the needs of the sales department, because without successful sales the company as a whole would fail.Shipping manager: There are several departments other than sales that also must function successfully for the company to succeed. It is impossible to give the highest priority to all of them.The shipping manager criticizes the sales manager's argument by pointing out
Answer(s): D
The stem is packed with clues. It tells us 1) what the shipping manager does (criticize the sales manager) and what we're to do (recognize the basis for the criticism). Let's start with the person being criticized: The evidence Keyword "because" bisects the sales manager's argument, the conclusion preceding it and the evidence naturally following it. Sales should get the highest priority, because without a successful sales department, the company is sunk. And it's not too hard to anticipate a criticism of this line of reasoning: There are other necessary departments whose success are crucial to the company, the shipping manager points out. They can't all get highest priority. option [an absurd consequence of its apparent...] gets at this issue: The sales manager bases her argument on the necessity of the sales department, without considering the possible necessity of other departments.If necessity alone is the criterion, then the "absurd consequence" is having to award the highest priority to a bunch of different departments, which is by definition impossible.
Researchers have found that people who drink five or more cups of coffee a day have a risk of heart disease 2.5 times the average after corrections are made for age and smoking habits. Members of the research team say that, on the basis of their findings, they now limit their own daily coffee intake to two cups.Which one of the following, if true, indicates that the researchers' precaution might NOT have the result of decreasing their risk of heart disease?
Although the question stem doesn't make it obvious, this is a weaken question. We're asked to find the choice which, if true, suggests that cutting down on coffee might not lower the risk of heart disease. Given that coffee drinkers tend to get heart disease more often than the average, it might seem prudent to cut down on coffee. It certainly appears as if the researchers have interpreted the evidence to mean that coffee drinking causes increased risk of heart disease. But for all we know, the connection between coffee drinking and heart disease could be a coincidence. Maybe there's something about coffee drinkers other than their coffee drinking that makes them more likely to get heart disease. C. provides such a factor: stress. It tells us that we don't know what the relationship between coffee consumption and stress is, and that stress definitely causes heart disease. IfC.is true, it's just as likely that coffee is not causally related to heart disease at all, but is simply correlated with the real cause, stress. If that's the case, cutting down on the java may very well not decrease the risk of heart disease as the researchers seem to expect.
People who have political power tend to see new technologies as a means of extending or protecting their power, whereas they generally see new ethical arguments and ideas as a threat to it. Therefore, technical ingenuity usually brings benefits to those who have this ingenuity, whereas ethical inventiveness brings only pain to those who have this inventiveness.Which one of the following statements, if true, most strengthens the argument?
Answer(s): B
The relationship of power to ethics and new technologies is the subject here, and we're charged with finding the statement that would bolster the author's contention. The politically powerful see new technologies as a means to help them keep and expand their rule. Those who create new technological marvels, therefore, benefit from their ingenuity. Not so for ethical trailblazers, who suffer for their contributions because new ethical arguments and ideas threaten those in power. Did you recognize the chunk missing from this argument? The author makes no explicit link between the use to which the powerful can put new techno marvels and the benefits to those who create them; or, for that matter, between the harm new ideas can have on the powerful and the pain such new ideas can cause their creators. Evidently, the author assumes such links, but the argument is fairly weak unless these connections are made explicit. B. fills in the gaps: If powerful politicians reward those who can help them, and punish those who threaten their rule, then it seems more reasonable to believe that the techno geeks will benefit while the beacons of morality will suffer.
Birds need so much food energy to maintain their body temperatures that some of them spend most of their time eating. But a comparison of a bird of a seed-eating species to a bird of a nectar-eating species that has the same overall energy requirement would surely show that the seed-eating bird spends more time eating than does the nectar-eating bird, since a given amount of nectar provides more energy than does the same amount of seeds.The argument relies on which one of the following questionable assumptions?
The argument compares seed-eating birds with nectar-eating birds, both of which have the same overall energy requirement. Based on the evidence that a given amount of nectar provides more energy than does the same amount of seeds, the author concludes that seed-eating birds must spend more time eating. What's missing here? The relationship between how much time it takes to eat a given amount of nectar with the time it takes to eat a given amount of seeds. For the author's conclusion to be valid, it must be assumed that those times are equal. That's answer choice [The time it takes for the nectar-eating bird to...]. If you don't see that, use the Denial Test. If it does take longer for birds to eat a given amount of nectar, let's say 10 times longer, then it's very possible that nectar-eating birds will spend more of their free time eating.
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