Recently in our county, sales of beer have suffered a significant decline in restaurants, nightlife establishments, and retail stores. During this same time, the sheriff's office has initiated a new and well-funded campaign against the short-term dangers and long-term health risks caused by alcohol consumption. Therefore, the decrease in beer consumption has been caused by consumers' awareness of the dangers and risks of alcohol consumption.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the explanation above?

Through Topeka airport, the volume of plane travel is just enough for the commercial airlines to make modest profits. The size of the city's population is stable and is not expected to increase much. Yet there are investors ready to double the number of flights to and from the airport within ten years, and they are predicting solid profits both for themselves and for the established airlines.

Which of the following about the city of Topeka, if true, most helps to provide a justification for the investors' prediction?

The rate of smoking, globally, is higher now than ever before. In fact, 20% more people smoke today than did 20 years ago. In the nation of Ebano, 20% of people smoke; in Paisi, 25%. And in the last twenty years, the number of people who smoke increased by 13% in Kitton and 27% in Kappa.

Which of the following conclusions can most properly be drawn from the information above?

While our nation's law enforcement can search our bodily persons in public if they have just cause, they can search our homes only if they have a signed warrant. Therefore, our nation's law enforcement should be able to search our electronic communications only if they have a signed warrant.

The conclusion above would be more reasonably drawn if which of the following were inserted into the argument as an additional premise?

A production facility that requires its air to be free of particulate matter requires staff and visitors to enter the production floor by way of a single hallway that is interrupted at each of three points by a changing room. In each room, an entrant must change into a new lab jacket, a hat, and new clean shoe coverings after the room is blasted with air. The facility intends to speed up the process of entering the production facility by replacing the three rooms with two changing rooms of a new design whose method of blasting air is effective enough to maintain the required air quality.

Which of the following would be most important to know in determining whether the production facility's plan, if implemented, is likely to achieve its goal?

For similar homes and comparable residents, home insurance for theft has always cost more in Andover than in Wrightsville. Police studies, however, show that homes owned by Andover residents are, on average, slightly less likely to be robbed than homes in Wrightsville. Clearly, therefore, insurance companies are making a greater profit on home theft insurance in Andover than in Wrightsville.

In evaluating the argument, it would be most useful to compare

Analyst: In our nation's television news programs, the number of stories aired about armed conflicts in Africa was much lower last year than it had been previously. Several armed conflicts have been fully or partly resolved with ceasefire agreements, so it is probable that the low number of articles is due to a decline in armed conflict in Africa.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the analyst's argument?

Taaffeite costs more per ounce than painite. But since plutonium costs more per ounce than platinum, it follows that taaffeite costs more per ounce than platinum.

Any of the following, if introduced into the argument as an additional premise, makes the argument above logically correctEXCEPT:

The more incentives there are for financial institutions to provide home mortgages, the more mortgage options financial institutions will provide to cater to different circumstances, and the odds that a potential home buyer is able to purchase a home are increased when more mortgage options are available. Therefore, by increasing incentives to financial institutions to provide home mortgages, the government can create circumstances that are more helpful for home buyers.

If the statements above are true, which of the following must be true?

Astrology is considered by many a false science, but it is in fact a true field of science because it uses scientific methods such as the analysis of cause and effect and careful documentation of observations over time by many individuals.

The conclusion above is properly drawn if which of the following is assumed?

Developed over roughly a millennium and containing 24 books, the Masoretic Text, commonly called the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible and is recognized by Rabbinic Judaism as authoritative.

There are nearly 250,000 people from Northeast India living and working in Bangalore;many of them are poor students and laborers who have migrated to the southern cities in search of better jobs and education.

During the economic recession of 2008–09, insurance companies incurred substantial losses marketing elaborate insurance products that, due to a decline in consumer interest in complex insurance products, were never sold.

According to theory A, one of the functions of the brain that is affected by temperature change is

In the context of the passage, which of the following is the main purpose of the third paragraph?

The author of the passage is primarily concerned with

The passage mentions which of the following as a factor contributing to the future ecological impact of electronic reading?