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122
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Many leadership theories have provided evidence that leaders affect group success rather than the success of particular individuals. So it is irrelevant to analyze the effects of supervisor traits on the attitudes of individuals whom they supervise. Instead, assessment of leadership effectiveness should occur only at the group level.
Which of the following would it be most useful to establish in order to evaluate the argument?
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123
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A major health insurance company in Lagolia pays for special procedures prescribed by physicians only if the procedure is first approved as "medically necessary" by a company-appointed review panel. The rule is intended to save the company the money it might otherwise spend on medically unnecessary procedures. The company has recently announced that in order to reduce its costs, it will abandon this rule.
Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest justification for the company's decision?
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124
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Automobile ownership was rare in Sabresia as recently as 30 years ago, but with continuing growth of personal income there, automobile ownership has become steadily more common. Consequently, there are now far more automobiles on Sabresia's roads than there were 30 years ago, and the annual number of automobile accidents has increased significantly. Yet the annual number of deaths and injuries resulting from automobile accidents has not increased significantly.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain why deaths and injuries resulting from automobile accidents have not increased significantly?
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125
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To evaluate a plan to save money on office-space expenditures by having its employees work at home, XYZ Company asked volunteers from its staff to try the arrangement for six months. During this period, the productivity of these employees was as high as or higher than before.
Which of the following, if true, would argue most strongly against deciding, on the basis of the trial results, to implement the company's plan?
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126
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A child learning to play the piano will not succeed unless the child has an instrument at home on which to practice. However, good-quality pianos, whether new or secondhand, are costly. Buying one is justified only if the child has the necessary talent and perseverance, which is precisely what one cannot know in advance. Consequently, parents should buy an inexpensive
secondhand instrument at first and upgrade if and when the child's ability and inclination are proven.
Which of the following, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the course of action recommended for parents?
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127
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Nutritionists are advising people to eat more fish, since the omega-3 fatty acids in fish help combat many diseases. If everyone took this advice, however, there would not be enough fish in oceans, rivers, and lakes to supply the demand; the oceans are already being overfished. The obvious method to ease the pressure on wild fish populations is for people to increase their consumption of farmed fish.
Which of the following, if true, raises the most serious doubt concerning the prospects for success of the solution proposed above?
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128
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Which of the following most logically completes the market forecaster's argument?
Market forecaster: The price of pecans is high when pecans are comparatively scarce but drops sharply when pecans are abundant. Thus, in high-yield years, growers often store part of their crop in refrigerated warehouses until after the next year's harvest, hoping for higher prices then. Because of bad weather, this year's pecan crop will be very small. Nevertheless,
pecan prices this year will not be significantly higher than last year, since _________.
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129
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It is often said that high rates of inflation tend to diminish people's incentive to save and invest. This view must be incorrect, however, because people generally saved and invested more of their income in the 1970's when inflation rates were high than they did in the 1980's when inflation rates were low.
Of the following, the best criticism of the argument above is that it overlooks the possibility that
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130
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Which of the following most logically completes the argument below?
Within the earth's core, which is iron, pressure increases with depth. Because the temperature at which iron melts increases with pressure, the inner core is solid and the outer core is molten. Physicists can determine the melting temperature of iron at any given pressure and the pressure for any given depth in the earth. Therefore, the actual temperature at the boundary of the earth's outer and inner cores-the melting temperature of iron there-can be determined, since ______.
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131
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Which of the following most logically completes the reasoning?
Either food scarcity or excessive hunting can threaten a population of animals. If the group faces food scarcity, individuals in the group will reach reproductive maturity later than otherwise. If the group faces excessive hunting, individuals that reach reproductive maturity earlier will come to predominate. Therefore, it should be possible to determine whether prehistoric
mastodons became extinct because of food scarcity or human hunting, since there are fossilized mastodon remains from both before and after mastodon populations declined, and _____.
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132
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Many office buildings designed to prevent outside air from entering have been shown to have elevated levels of various toxic substances circulating through the air inside, a phenomenon known as sick building syndrome. Yet the air in other office buildings does not have elevated levels of these substances, even though those buildings are the same age as the "sick" buildings and have similar designs and ventilation systems.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain why not all office buildings designed to preven't outside air from entering have air that contains elevated levels of toxic substances?
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133
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Newsletter: A condominium generally offers more value for its cost than an individual house because of economies of scale.
The homeowners in a condominium association can collectively buy products and services that they could not afford on their own. And since a professional management company handles maintenance of common areas, condominium owners spend less time and money on maintenance than individual homeowners do.
The two portions in boldface play which of the following roles in the newsletter's argument?
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134
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Which of the following most logically completes the argument?
When officials in Tannersburg released their plan to widen the city's main roads, environmentalists protested that widened roads would attract more traffic and lead to increased air pollution. In response, city officials pointed out that today's pollution-control devices are at their most effective in vehicles traveling at higher speeds and that widening roads would increase the average speed of traffic. However, this
effect can hardly be expected to offset the effect pointed out by environmentalists, since ___
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135
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Sparrow Airlines is planning to reduce its costs by cleaning its planes' engines once a month, rather than the industry standard of every six months. With cleaner engines, Sparrow can postpone engine overhauls, which take planes out of service for up to 18 months. Furthermore, cleaning an engine reduces its fuel consumption by roughly 1.2 percent.
The airline's plan assumes that
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136
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John: You told me once that no United States citizen who supports union labor should buy an imported car. Yet you are buying an Alma. Since Alma is one of the biggest makers of imports, I infer that you no longer support unions.
Harry: I still support labor unions. Even though Alma is a foreign car company, the car I am buying, the Alma Deluxe, is designed, engineered, and manufactured in the United States.
Harry's method of defending his purchase of an Alma is to
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137
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Super Express Shipping Company has implemented a new distribution system that can get almost every package to its destination the day after it is sent. The company worries that this more efficient system will result in lower sales of its premium next-day delivery service, because its two day service will usually arrive the following day anyway. The company plans to encourage sales of its next-day service by intentionally delaying delivery of its two-day packages so that they will not be delivered the following day, even if the package arrives at its destination city in time for next-day delivery.
The company's plan assumes that
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138
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Public-sector (government-owned) companies are often unprofitable and a drain on the taxpayer. Such enterprises should be sold to the private sector, where competition will force them either to be efficient and profitable or else to close.
Which of the following, if true, identifies a flaw in the policy proposed above?
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139
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Studies of the political orientations of 1,055 college students revealed that the plurality of students in an eastern, big-city, private university was liberal, whereas in a state-supported, southern college, the plurality was conservative. Orientations were independent of the student's region of origin, and the trends were much more pronounced in seniors than in beginning students.
Which of the following hypotheses is best supported by the observations stated above?
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140
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In its search for new technologies for solar energy that can produce lower-cost electricity, Smith-Diatom is developing a new way to make dye-sensitive solar cells, in which photons strike light-sensitive dyes. The process uses diatoms, which are unicellular algae that have silicon shells with a complex structure. First, the organic material is removed, and then the shells are coated with a titanium dioxide film that acts as a semiconductor. The diatoms' structure results in more photon activity and thus more efficient production of electricity than with current dye-sensitized solar cells, which in turn lowers the cost.
Which of the following considerations would, if true, most strongly support the hypothesis that the plan, if implemented, will produce low-cost electricity from dye-sensitive solar cells?
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141
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Platinum is a relatively rare metal vital to a wide variety of industries. Xagor Corporation, a major producer of platinum, has its production plant in a country that will soon begin imposing an export tax on platinum sold and shipped to customers abroad. As a consequence, the price of platinum on the world market is bound to rise.
Which of the following, if true, tends to confirm the conclusion above?
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