Recently, scientists determined that great white sharks can live over 70 years, much longer than had been previously thought. They made the discovery by examining the layers of different colors that accumulated on the shark's teeth over the years. In the 1950s, atomic bomb testing produced unusually large amounts of carbon-14, which fell from the atmosphere into the ocean and accumulated as a distinctive layer on the shark's teeth corresponding to a known period in time. Perplexingly, even though great white sharks live longer than had been expected, some parties maintain that based on the new findings, the great white sharks must be protected from overfishing.

Which of the following, if true, best resolves the discrepancy identified above?

Wappo, a company that manufactures turbine blades for hydroelectric dams, has designed a new model of blade with a superior hydrodynamic form that will save energy and hence cost in implementation. Wappo is willing to sell these blades to a particular hydroelectric dam at no initial cost. The only payment will be the difference between, first, a percentage of the dam's improved profits, as measured by the percentage improvement of the hydroelectric dam efficiency times the value of energy sold by the plant over an 18-month period, and, second, the additional cost of installation and maintenance of the new turbines. On installation, the dam will make an estimated payment, which will be adjusted after eighteen months to equal the proper amount.

Which of the following, if it occurred, would constitute a disadvantage for Wappo of the plan described above?

Because they can craft objects of a new design without having extrusion fittings custom-designed for that purpose, 3D printers have an application in building prototypes of new models of objects long before those new models are on production lines, and it was on this basis that they first captured the interest of the market. However, suitability for prototyping does not limit 3D printers to prototyping, and in fact their capability to craft items without specialized fittings for each design can allow them, in essence, to be the production line. 3D printers have this natural application to mass-production in part because they can produce items at a cost competitive with that of production lines.

In the argument given, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

Management: Our position relative to our main competitor, which is located in the country of Patrio, has improved this year. The Patrian government has placed steep tariffs on imported steel, forcing our competitor to buy steel from sources inside the country at a much higher price. We can conclude that their costs have increased greatly this year, to levels much higher than ours, and they will be forced to deplete their cash reserves, leaving them with less cash in reserve than we will have to spend on marketing next year.

Which of the following conclusions is best supported by these comments about the management about its company and its competitor in Patrio?

Known to be antisocial birds, cuckoos are solitary animals that practice brood parasitism, whereby they plant their young in another bird's nest through deception and subterfuge so that the host bird will take on the burden of raising the cuckoo's offspring. However, the ani species of cuckoo is highly social; anis congregate with others of their kind and often trust humans. Scientists attribute the anis' more social behavior to communal living conditions that do not require antisocial behavior of the birds.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the scientists' explanation of anis' more social behavior?

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a disease in cattle that can spread to humans through the consumption of beef. A government ministry plans to reassure consumers of beef that sufficient controls are in place at farms to render nonexistent the risk of contracting BSE from beef. Prohibitions against cattle eating other cattle brain tissue and regulations on the treatment of cattle waste have been put in place and dramatically reduced BSE cases. But diagnosis of BSE is difficult: it has an incubation period of months to years, during which there are no symptoms. At present, there is virtually no way to detect BSE reliably except by examining post-mortem brain tissue. And beef is known to be produced and sold from cattle that have not undergone testing.

Which of the following, if performed by the government ministry, could logically be expected to overcome the problem with their plan to reassure consumers of beef?

Since publicly traded companies opt to shield some negative information about their company from the market, negative information tends to be shared progressively less and in wider communication channels of a company's organization. The public is, therefore, has less negative information about a publicly traded company than do the company's employees of the most private circles, such as the CEO.

The conclusion drawn above is based on the assumption that

A luxury car dealership in Taquitoville is expected to close due to competition from an Alexa dealership, which also sells luxury cars. Nevertheless, the demand for cars in Taquitoville will be sufficient for a new dealership to succeed as a new business. After all, in previous years, the Dealeo discount car dealership in Taquitoville has driven several other dealerships out of business, but in every case there has been sufficient demand for a new dealership to enter the city and be successful for a time.

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

A group of scientists have studied schizophrenics in an isolated community in Costa Rica with the objective of learning about the causes of schizophrenia worldwide. A flaw in this strategy is that schizophrenia is characterized by impaired emotional responses, and the way emotional responses are learned may differ across cultures of the world. It might even be fair to say that, on what is now a largely interconnected planet, a schizophrenic in an isolated community is a schizophrenic of no practical interest.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument made above about the group's approach?

In troubled economic times, there is a shift in business from mainstream retail stores to discount retail stores as consumers aim to reduce their total monthly spending. For local discount stores, when unemployment rises or effective wages decline due to inflation or another cause, sales go up. By contrast, however, during periods of extreme economic hardship, business at discount stores stops improving and may even suffer.

Which of the following, if true, does most to explain the contrast described above?

State government manager:  By removing the fax machines in our state government offices, we will save costs and also avoid the hassle of maintaining and replacing or repairing fax machines. We all have access to computers in our offices and we can make sure those computers are equipped with electronic faxing accounts. Therefore, the fax machines in our offices can be eliminated without any loss of efficiency in how we do our work.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the claim that the proposal, if carried out, will have the announced effect?

The ministry asserts that improvements in sentiment indicators are evidence that the economy will dodge the uncertainty that had been caused earlier by the euro debt crisis and instead grow by 1.8 percent in 2014.

The author’s main purpose is to

The author implies that all of the following statements about shark products are true EXCEPT

The purpose of the second paragraph of the passage is best described as which of the following?

The passage suggests that which of the following is a key difference between Uranus’s moons and Jupiter’s moons?

According to the passage, which of the following contributed to Evers’s role in the NAACP campaign to desegregate the University of Mississippi Law School?