GMAT
During the past year, Pro-Tect Insurance Company's total payout on car-theft claims has been larger than the company can afford to sustain. Pro-Tect cannot reduce the number of car-theft policies it carries, so it cannot protect itself against continued large payouts that way. Therefore, Pro-Tect has decided to offer a discount to holders of car-theft policies whose cars have antitheft devices. Many policyholders will respond to the discount by installing such devices, since the amount of the discount will within two years typically more than cover the cost of installation. Thus, because cars with antitheft devices are rarely stolen, Pro-Tect's plan is likely to reduce its annual payouts.In the argument above, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
A product that represents a clear technological advance over competing products can generally command a high price. Because technological advances tend to be quickly surpassed and companies want to make large profits while they still can, many companies charge the maximum possible price for such a product. But large profits on the new product will give competitors a strong incentive to quickly match the new product's capabilities. Consequently, the strategy to maximize overall profit from a new product is to charge less than the greatest possible price.In the argument above, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
Paleontologist: About 2.8 million years ago, many species that lived near the ocean floor suffered substantial population declines. These declines coincided with the onset of an ice age. The notion that cold killed those bottom-dwelling creatures outright is misguided, however; temperatures near the ocean floor would have changed very little. Nevertheless, the cold probably did cause the population declines, though indirectly. Many bottom-dwellers depended for food on plankton, small organisms that lived close to the surface and sank to the bottom when they died. Most probably, the plankton suffered a severe population decline as a result of sharply lower temperatures at the surface, depriving many bottom-dwellers of food.In the paleontologist's reasoning, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
Consumer advocate: it is generally true, at least in this state, that lawyers who advertise a specific service charge less for that service than lawyers who do not advertise. It is also true that each time restrictions on the advertising of legal services have been eliminated, the number of lawyers advertising their services has increased and legal costs to consumers have declined in consequence. However, eliminating the state requirement that legal advertisements must specify fees for specific services would almost certainly increase rather than further reduce consumer's legal costs. Lawyers would no longer have an incentive to lower their fees when they begin advertising and if no longer required to specify fee arrangements, many lawyers who now advertise would increase their fees.In the consumer advocate's argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
Most of Western music since the Renaissance has been based on a seven-note scale known as the diatonic scale, but when did the scale originate? A fragment of a bone flute excavated at a Neanderthal campsite has four holes, which are spaced in exactly the right way for playing the third through sixth notes of a diatonic scale. The entire flute must surely have had more holes, and the flute was made from a bone that was long enough for these additional holes to have allowed a complete diatonic scale to be played. Therefore, the Neanderthals who made the flute probably used a diatonic musical scale.In the argument given, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
Journalist: Every election year at this time the state government releases the financial disclosures that potential candidates must make in order to be eligible to run for office. Among those making the required financial disclosure this year is a prominent local businessman, Arnold Bergeron. There has often been talk in the past of Mr. Bergeron's running for governor, not least from Mr. Bergeron himself. This year it is likely he finally will, since those who have discounted the possibility of a Bergeron candidacy have always pointed to the necessity of making financial disclosure as the main obstacle to such a candidacy.In the journalist's argument, the two boldfaced portions play which of the following roles?
One of the limiting factors in human physical performance is the amount of oxygen that is absorbed by the muscles from the bloodstream. Accordingly, entrepreneurs have begun selling at gymnasiums and health clubs bottles of drinking water, labeled "SuperOXY," that has extra oxygen dissolved in the water. Such water would be useless in improving physical performance, however, since the amount of oxygen in the blood of someone who is exercising is already more than the muscle cells can absorb.Which of the following, if true, would serve the same function in the argument as the statement in boldface?
In countries where automobile insurance includes compensation for whiplash injuries sustained in automobile accidents, reports of having suffered such injuries are twice as frequent as they are in countries where whiplash is not covered. Some commentators have argued, correctly, that since there is presently no objective test for whiplash, spurious reports of whiplash injuries cannot be readily identified. These commentators are, however, wrong to draw the further conclusion that in the countries with the higher rates of reported whiplash injuries, half of the reported cases are spurious: clearly, in countries where automobile insurance does not include compensation for whiplash, people often have little incentive to report whiplash injuries that they actually have suffered.In the argument given, the two boldfaced portions play which of the following roles?
Astronomer: Observations of the Shoemaker-Levi comet on its collision course with Jupiter showed that the comet broke into fragments before entering Jupiter's atmosphere in 1994, but they did not show how big those fragments were. In hopes of gaining some indication of the fragments' size, astronomers studied spectrographic analyses of Jupiter's outer atmosphere. These analyses revealed unprecedented traces of sulfur after the fragments' entry. The fragments themselves almost certainly contained no sulfur, but many astronomers believe that the cloud layer below Jupiter's outer atmosphere does contain sulfur. Since sulfur would have seeped into the outer atmosphere if comet fragments had penetrated this cloud layer, it is likely that some of the fragments were at least large enough to have passed through Jupiter's outer atmosphere without being burned up.In the astronomer's argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
Plant scientists have used genetic engineering on seeds to produce crop plants that are highly resistant to insect damage. Unfortunately, the seeds themselves are quite expensive, and the plants require more fertilizer and water to grow well than normal ones. Thus, for most farmers the savings on pesticides would not compensate for the higher seed costs and the cost of additional fertilizer. However, since consumer demand for grains, fruits, and vegetables grown without the use of pesticides continues to rise, the use of genetically engineered seeds of this kind is likely to become widespread.In the argument given, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?