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Magoosh
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Every day at noon, a bus leaves for Townville and travels at a speed of x kilometers per hour. Today, the bus left 30 minutes late. If the driver drives 7/6 times as fast as usual, she will arrive in Townville at the regular time. If the distance to Townville is 280 kilometers, what is the value of x?
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Magoosh
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2600 has how many positive divisors?
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People associate global warming with temperature, but the phrase is misleading—it fails to mention the relevance of water. Nearly every significant indicator of hydrological activity—rainfall, snowmelt, glacial melt—is changing at an accelerating pace (one can arbitrarily pick any point of the hydrological cycle and notice a disruption). One analysis pegged the increase in precipitation at 2 percent over the century. In water terms this sounds auspicious, promising increased supply, but the changing timing and composition of the precipitation more than neutralizes the advantage. For one thing, it is likely that more of the precipitation will fall in intense episodes, with flooding a reasonable prospect. In addition, while rainfall will increase, snowfall will decrease. Such an outcome means that in watersheds that depend on snowmelt, like the Indus, Ganges, Colorado river basins, less water will be stored as snow, and more of it will flow in the winter, when it plays no agricultural role; conversely, less of it will flow in the summer, when it is most needed. One computer model showed that on the Animas River an increase in temperature of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit would cause runoff to rise by 85 percent from January to March, but drop by 40 percent from July to September. The rise in temperature increases the probability and intensity of spring floods and threatens dam safety, which is predicated on lower runoff projections. Dams in arid areas also may face increased sedimentation, since a 10 percent annual increase in precipitation can double the volume of sediment washed into rivers. The consequences multiply. Soil moisture will intensify at the highest northern latitudes, where precipitation will grow far more than evaporation and plant transpiration but where agriculture is nonexistent. At the same time, precipitation will drop over northern mid-latitude continents in summer months, when ample soil moisture is an agricultural necessity. Meanwhile the sea level will continue to rise as temperatures warm, accelerating saline contamination of freshwater aquifers and river deltas. The temperature will cause increased evaporation, which in turn will lead to a greater incidence of drought. Perhaps most disturbing of all, the hydrologic cycle is becoming increasingly unpredictable. This means that the last century's hydrological cycle—the set of assumptions about water on which modern irrigation is based—has become unreliable. Build a dam too large, and it may not generate its designed power; build it too small, and it may collapse or flood. Release too little dam runoff in the spring and risk flood, as the snowmelt cascades downstream with unexpected volume; release too much and the water will not be available for farmers when they need it. At a time when water scarcity calls out for intensified planning, planning itself may be stymied.
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Magoosh
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According to the passage, the likelihood that “dams in arid areas also may face increased sedimentation” will most likely result from
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Magoosh
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A certain restaurant offers 8 different salads, 5 different main courses, 6 different desserts. If customers choose one salad, one main course and two different desserts for their meal, how many different meals are possible?
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Magoosh
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It can be inferred that the author dismisses the Annales Cambriae as a reliable source on the historical Arthur on the grounds that
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Magoosh
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 In the figure above, JKLMN is a regular pentagon. Find the measure of ∠KQL.
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The US Constitution established both gold and silver as the basis of US currency: that is to say, it established a bimetallic standard for currency. This remained in place for about a century, until the Coinage Act of 1873, which embraced a "gold only" standard, a monometallic standard, effectively dropping silver as the basis of currency. Over the next several decades, advocates of bimetallism and advocates of the "gold only" standard fiercely debated. The "gold only" advocates, such as William McKinley, argued that shifts in the relative value of the two precious metals could lead to wild fluctuations in the values of currency in a bimetallic system. Early in the United States history, Alexander Hamilton had tried to fix the gold-silver exchange rate by fiat, but of course, such restraints only inhibit the natural development of a free market. Unemployment was high in the depression caused by the Panic of 1893, and many argued that these economic challenges had been triggered by abandoning bimetallism. One of the more prominent advocates of bimetallism was William Jennings Bryant: indeed, bimetallism was the very center of his presidential campaigns in 1896 and 1900, both of which he lost to McKinley. Bryant articulated the popular view that a "gold only" standard limited the money supply, and thus favored those who were already quite wealthy, against the interests of working people of all professions. He famously expressed this argument in his "Cross of Gold" speech at the 1896 Democratic National Convention, in which he argued that continuing the "gold only" standard would "crucify" the honest laboring classes on a "cross of gold." Despite the eloquence of Bryant's arguments, history strongly favored the "gold-only" standard. The argument that increasing the money supply would lead to greater prosperity strikes us now as naïve: of course, we now understand that increasing the monetary supply can lead to runaway inflation, which hurts everyone. Furthermore, gold did not remain as limited as the advocates of bimetallism imagined. In the 1890s, scientists discovered a cyanide process that allowed workers to extract pure gold from much lower grade ore, thus significantly increasing domestic gold production. Additionally, the discovery of two immense gold deposits in South Africa substantially increased world gold supply. Thus, the "gold only" standard allowed for ample currency, and even robust prosperity in the 1920s, so bimetallism died a quiet death.
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Magoosh
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It can be inferred from the passage that the author believes that government attempts to control exchange rates
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Magoosh
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One reason advocates of bimetallism did not favor a “gold only” standard was that they believed that
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Unlike Mercury and Mars, Venus has a dense, opaque atmosphere that prevents direct observation of its surface. For years, surface telescopes on Earth could glean no information about the surface of Venus. In 1989, the Magellan probe was launched to do a five-year radar-mapping of the entire surface of Venus. The data that emerged provided by far the most detailed map of the Venusian surface ever seen. The surface shows an unbelievable level of volcanic activity: more than one hundred large shield volcanoes, many more than Earth has, and a solidified river of lava longer than the Nile. The entire surface is volcanically dead, with not a single active volcano. This surface is relatively young in planetary terms, about 300 million years old. The whole surface, planet-wide, is the same age: the even pattern of craters, randomly distributed across the surface, demonstrates this. To explain this puzzling surface, Turcotte suggested a radical model. The surface of Venus, for a period, is as it is now, a surface of uniform age with no active volcanism. While the surface is fixed, volcanic pressure builds up inside the planet. At a certain point, the pressure ruptures the surface, and the entire planet is re-coated in lava in a massive planet-wide outburst of volcanism. Having spent all this thermal energy in one gigantic outpouring, the surface cools and hardens, again producing the kind of surface we see today. Turcotte proposed that this cycle repeated several times in the past, and would still repeat in the future.
To most planetary geologists, Turcotte's model is a return to catastrophism. For two centuries, geologist of all kinds fought against the idea of catastrophic, planet-wide changes, such as the Biblical idea of Noah's Flood. The triumph of gradualism was essential to the success of geology as a serious science. Indeed, all features of Earth's geology and all features of other moons and planets in the Solar System, even those that are not volcanically active, are explained very well by current gradualist models. Planetary geologists question why all other objects would obey gradualist models, and only Venus would obey a catastrophic model. These geologists insist that the features of Venus must be able to be explained in terms of incremental changes continuously over a long period. Turcotte, expecting these objections, points out that no incremental process could result in a planet-wide surface all the same age. Furthermore, a slow process of continual change does not well explain why a planet with an astounding history of volcanic activity is now volcanically dead. Turcotte argues that only his catastrophic model adequately explains the extremes of the Venusian surface.
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Magoosh
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Which of the following would constitute evidence against Turcotte's model?
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Magoosh
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In the context of the passage as a whole, the purpose of the second paragraph is
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Magoosh
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The purpose of this passage is
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Magoosh
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The primary purpose of the passage is to
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Magoosh
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Based on information in the passage, if a follow-up study had been conducted in which those with caffeine sensitivities were removed, such a study would most likely
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Magoosh
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According to the passage, the long-billed shorebird is expected to be more likely than the short-billed shorebird to have trouble migrating because
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Magoosh
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The author's suggestion that the kind of trials that Gimley and Lebsmith endorse “will encourage a culture of experimentation” assumes that
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Magoosh
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Which of the hypothetical trials best parallels a shortcoming in clinical trials as described by Gimley and Lebsmith?
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In exploring the role of women during colonial times, historiographers have taken several, though not necessarily conflicting, approaches. Malley and Jemson represent those who have focused on the roles of women in countries under colonial power. However, they are atypical in that they attempt to place the specific continent they studied—South East Asia—in a larger, transnational context. For instance, in claiming that women in Annam (the name of Vietnam before 1950) had diminished economic power, even more so than in their traditional roles, which allowed for some economic autonomy (women's active role in the marketplace culture is cited), Malley and Jemson are able to make certain parallels with societies in which colonial power rested, namely England and France. Yet, the eye for detail that makes their work on Southeast Asia so compelling is lost in broad generalizations. In pointing out that it was deemed unladylike for women to engage in economic activity in both France and French Indochina, Malley and Jemson would have strengthened their case by offering specific examples from both those parts of the world. Additionally, the greater question of how in some cases colonialism not only offered more freedom than did traditional roles (in real estate a woman's initials were part of the deed) but also limited women's freedom would have made the discussion more germane to a transnational context.On the other hand, Camden and Greely, draw broad conclusions in a transnational context, but their understanding of this context is limited by their narrow focus on the history of a specific country. Such a narrow view, unsurprisingly, leads them to impose certain metanarratives on these countries. For instance, in aiming to show that women in places under the colonial yoke acquired roles similar to women in Europe, and later America, Camden and Greely relied on small island nations in the Caribbean to make their case. In doing so, the two not only compromised the scope of their findings but also did not account for practices within these nations that might call into question the validity of their metanarratives. By overlooking the aspects of the culture of the countries they studied and by not including countries that were more representative of colonialism, Camden and Greely fail to concede that such metanarratives might themselves need some review to better account for more widespread practices. Thus, the few parallels they draw between these Caribbean nations and European powers are unconvincing. As both the approaches of Camden and Greely and those of Malley and Jemson show, historicity would be better served by scholars working in tandem to tease out general themes that apply to countries while also appreciating how a country's local culture informed and coexisted with such themes.
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