Which of the following most logically completes the argument below?

A non-profit organization is deciding whether to deliver and administer a limited quantity of a new vaccine for malaria, a mosquito-borne disease, to Country A or Country B, two countries with equal populations that are evenly distributed geographically and equally at risk of malaria. The expected rate of success per administration is expected to be the same in each country, but the non-profit organization has limited time to administer the drug and is uncertain of reaching either population in its entirety. Country B is smaller. Therefore, administering the vaccine to Country B will be more effective than administering to Country A, since _______________.

Which of the following most logically completes the argument?

The city is threatened by an impending tropical storm, which is expected to raise the water outside the city to levels approaching the height of the protective barrier along the coast. Three teams of engineers and oceanographers have independently predicted the maximum water level will reach 89%, 83%, and 88% of the height of the protective barrier. The city is sufficiently safe, provided that _______________.

Disease X has afflicted cattle and cut into ranchers' profits. A genetic cause of the disease has been identified, as well as a gene therapy that can completely eradicate the cause of the disease in cattle. By applying this gene therapy to their cattle and eradicating the genetic susceptibility to the disease, ranchers will be able to carry on business in the future without incidence of Disease X in their cattle.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

Inhabitants of the country Orctania suffer from a much lower incidence of cancer than the inhabitants of other countries, for reasons that are generally theorized to be environmental and behavioral--the pollution-free air, stress-free and drug-free living, healthy dietary practices, and active lifestyle. Nevertheless, people from other countries who take up residence in Orctania and attempt to follow the practices of the inhabitants still have a radically higher incidence of cancer than do native Octanians.

Which of the following does NOThelp to explain the higher incidence rate of cancer in non-native Orctanians?

The percentage of global tourists who visit Glastock has increased by five percentage points over the past three years. Since tourism contributes an estimated 7% of Glastock's gross domestic product, this increase is likely to have a positive impact on the economy of Glastock.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument given?

Fund manager: over the last five years, the various stock funds managed by our company increased on average by 7 percent more in value than the market as a whole annually. Furthermore, the performance of each particular stock fund has not varied much from one year to the next, and our few investment products other than stock funds have stayed even with the market. These results show the success of our company: each year, most of our investment products have increased in value more than the market.

The debater's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on which of these grounds?

Cattle rancher: The new government regulations requiring the testing of all cattle crossing state borders would cost cattle ranchers $1 billion annually. These regulations would damage the nation's economy.

Health regulator: Some of the $1 billion spent or lost by ranchers will be revenue for other businesses. Profits will be gained as well as lost.

The health regulator responds to the cattle rancher by

A statistical review of word types and frequencies in all of the novels in a library has found that the novels published prior to 1970 use far fewer slang words, measured as a percentage of the book's total words, than the novels published in 1970 or later. Evidently, whether or not they intended to do so, authors of novels published prior to 1970 used less slang than authors of later books.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens this argument?

A number of college students were recruited by the psychology department to participate in a paid, unspecified experiment, which turned out to be a menial, monotonous counting exercise. Unbeknownst to the students, half of the participants were paid a meager rate for their participation, while half received a generous rate. After the counting exercise was complete, each student was asked questions on his or her perception of the counting exercise. Surprisingly, the participants who had been paid less reported higher levels of enjoyment in completing the exercise than the higher-paid participants did.

Which of the following hypotheses, if true, best accounts for the findings of the experiment?

One method of predicting the future value of a particular company's stock is to attempt to correlate the pattern of its recent performance with the past performance of other companies, even companies in different industries, whose subsequent stock performance is known. This technique, known as "technical analysis," provides a readily available basis for predicting the future value of a company's stock without special knowledge of that company or its industry.

Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion that technical analysis, as described above, accurately predicts stock performance?

Counterfeit DVDs containing high-quality illegal copies of popular movies have proliferated in recent years and are sold at much lower prices than authorized DVDs, robbing the movies' rights holders of royalties on sales and diverting profits from production companies. To help track the distribution and sale of counterfeit DVDs, a government agency plans to produce informational brochures about the consequences and risks of counterfeiting; they also request sellers and consumers to report any counterfeit DVDs they encounter.

Which of the following, if true, would provide most support for the notion that the agencies' plan will have its intended effect?

Which of the following most logically completes the passage?

A tropical thorn forest was cleared and converted by humans into soybean fields. The loss of the original habitat poses a threat to the area's population of cuis, which are wild guinea pigs. Ecologists originally estimated that the cuis in the area would vanish within four years. Two years later, the population of cuis is already cut in half, but it is unlikely that they will completely vanish from the region within the next two years, since _______________.

Which of the following most logically completes the argument?

Loans extended from banks to individuals can allow individuals to take well-measured financial risks or pay off existing debts that carry higher interest rates. However, more aggressive banks extend freely to individuals loans that are too large for those individuals to foreseeably pay back, causing other problems. Therefore, the creation of a new department to monitor and restrict banks would benefit public well-being, since _______________.

Although a direct survey has yet to be produced, clearly the growing ubiquity of tablet computers in our country is leading to diminishing popularity of the original handheld entertainment—that is, books. In decades past, books were the primary source of print media, but one third of adults in our country now own tablet computers on which they can read electronic books, or e-books. And even as far back as eight years ago, before tablets had even hit the market, only about half of adults in our country said in a survey that they were reading a book at the present time.

Each of following would be useful to determine in order to evaluate the argument EXCEPT

The cost of producing cell phones in Country A is 12 percent less than the cost of producing cell phones in Country C. Even after transportation fees are added, it is still cheaper for a company to import cell phones from Country A to Country C than to produce cell phones in Country C.

The statements above, if true, best support which of the following assertions?

Professor: in one method of international conflict resolution, a nation that perceives itself to have been wronged by another nation should demand that conditions be met by the wrongdoing nation before negotiations between both parties can begin. If all countries behaved according to this method, countries in conflict would never succeed in beginning negotiations.

The professor's argument relies on which of the following assumptions?

Nanotechnology may pose risks in the coming decades as we find it increasingly commonplace to introduce small robots into our bodies. But the fact that these robots might be invisible to the naked eye doesn't mean we are helpless against them. After all, since the initial development of germ theory, we have designed and continuously improved upon ways to protect ourselves from a variety of germs.

In the passage, the author develops the argument by

An online media company plans to increase its share of market by deeply discounting its subscription prices for the next two months. The discounts will cut into profits, but because they will be heavily advertised, the company expects that they will attract buyers away from rival providers of similar media. The company foresees that, in the longer term, customers will initially be attracted by the discounts but will then remain loyal subscribers.

In assessing the plan's chances of achieving its aim, it would be most useful to know which of the following?

A new café intends to open and offer to its patrons unusual beverages served in an unusual atmosphere. Prior to beginning construction on its location, it had already secured funding based on the quality of its beverages, which it served to potential investors. But when it conducted intensive tests to gauge the interest of potential customers, it tested not whether they liked the beverages, but whether they liked descriptions of the café's atmosphere.

Which of the following, if true, best accounts for the new café's approach to conducting tests with potential customers?

Which of the following best completes the passage below?

The movie production company's estimate of financial losses due to the illegal download of movies cannot be correct, because it's a measure of the wrong phenomenon. Most of illegal downloading of movies is done exclusively by people who have a passing interest in the movies but no intention of buying them, as they appear to assume. Thus, the loss to the industry is