9. Contrary to earlier predictions, demand for sugarcane has not increased in recent years. Yet, even though prices and production amounts have also been stable during the last three years, sugarcane growers last year increased their profits by more than ten percent over the previous year’s level.
Any of the following statements, if true, about last year, helps to explain the rise in profits EXCEPT:
(A) Many countries that are large consumers of sugarcane increased their production of sugarcane-based ethanol, yet their overall consumption of sugarcane decreased.
(B) Sugarcane growers have saved money on wages by switching from paying laborers an hourly wage to paying them by the amount harvested.
(C) The price of oil, the major energy source used by sugarcane growers in harvesting their crops, dropped by over twenty percent.
(D) Many small sugarcane growers joined together to form an association of sugarcane producers and began to buy supplies at low group rates.（A）
(E) Rainfall in sugarcane-growing regions was higher than it had been during the previous year, allowing the growers to save money on expensive artificial irrigation.
10. If the county continues to collect residential trash at current levels, landfills will soon be overflowing and parkland will need to be used in order to create more space. Charging each household a fee for each pound of trash it puts out for collection will induce residents to reduce the amount of trash they create; this charge will therefore protect the remaining county parkland.
Which of the following is an assumption made in drawing the conclusion above?
(A) Residents will reduce the amount of trash they put out for collection by reducing the number of products they buy.
(B) The collection fee will not significantly affect the purchasing power of most residents, even if their households do not reduce the amount of trash they put out.
(C) The collection fee will not induce residents to dump their trash in the parklands illegally.
(D) The beauty of county parkland is an important issue for most of the county’s residents.（C）
(E) Landfills outside the county’s borders could be used as dumping sites for the county’s trash.
Questions 11-12 are based on the following.
Environmentalist: The commissioner of the Fish and Game Authority would have the public believe that increases in the number of marine fish caught demonstrate that this resource is no longer endangered. This is a specious argument, as unsound as it would be to assert that the ever-increasing rate at which rain forests are being cut down demonstrates a lack of danger to that resource. The real cause of the increased fish-catch is a greater efficiency in using technologies that deplete resources.
11. Which of the following strategies is used in the presentation of the environmentalist’s position?
(A) Questioning the motives of an opponent
(B) Showing that an opposing position is self-contradictory
(C) Attacking an argument through the use of an analogy
(D) Demonstrating the inaccuracy of certain data（C）
(E) Pointing out adverse consequences of a proposal
12. The environmentalist’s statements, if true, best support which of the following as a conclusion?
(A) The use of technology is the reason for the increasing encroachment of people on nature.
(B) It is possible to determine how many fish are in the sea in some way other than by catching fish.
(C) The proportion of marine fish that are caught is as high as the proportion of rain-forest trees that are cut down each year.
(D) Modern technologies waste resources by catching inedible fish.（E）
(E) Marine fish continue to be an endangered resource.
13. Biometric access-control systems—those using fingerprints, voiceprints, etc., to regulate admittance to restricted areas—work by degrees of similarity, not by identity. After all, even the same finger will rarely leave exactly identical prints. Such systems can be adjusted to minimize refusals of access to legitimate access-seekers. Such adjustments, however, increase the likelihood of admitting impostors.
Which of the following conclusions is most strongly supported by the information above?
(A) If a biometric access-control system were made to work by identity, it would not produce any correct admittance decisions.
(B) If a biometric access-control system reliably prevents impostors from being admitted, it will sometimes turn away legitimate access-seekers.
(C) Biometric access-control systems are appropriate only in situations in which admittance of impostors is less of a problem than is mistaken refusal of access.
(D) Nonbiometric access-control systems—based, for example, on numerical codes—are less likely than biometric ones to admit impostors.（B）
(E) Anyone choosing an access-control system should base the choice solely on the ratio of false refusals to false admittances.
14. Although computers can enhance people’s ability to communicate, computer games are a cause of underdeveloped communication skills in children. After-school hours spent playing computer games are hours not spent talking with people. Therefore, children who spend all their spare time playing these games have less experience in interpersonal communication than other children have.
The argument depends on which of the following assumptions?
(A) Passive activities such as watching television and listening to music do not hinder the development of communication skills in children.
(B) Most children have other opportunities, in addition to after-school hours, in which they can choose whether to play computer games or to interact with other people.
(C) Children who do not spend all of their after-school hours playing computer games spend at least some of that time talking with other people.
(D) Formal instruction contributes little or nothing to children’s acquisition of communication skills.（C）
(E) The mental skills developed through playing computer games do not contribute significantly to children’s intellectual development.
15. One variety of partially biodegradable plastic beverage container is manufactured from small bits of plastic bound together by a degradable bonding agent such as cornstarch. Since only the bonding agent degrades, leaving the small bits of plastic, no less plastic refuse per container is produced when such containers are discarded than when comparable nonbiodegradable containers are discarded.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?
(A) Both partially biodegradable and nonbiodegradable plastic beverage containers can be crushed completely flat by refuse compactors.
(B) The partially biodegradable plastic beverage containers are made with more plastic than comparable nonbiodegradable ones in order to compensate for the weakening effect of the bounding agents.
(C) Many consumers are ecology-minded and prefer to buy a product sold in the partially biodegradable plastic beverage containers rather than in nonbiodegradable containers, even if the price is higher.
(D) The manufacturing process for the partially biodegradable plastic beverage containers results in less plastic waste than the manufacturing process for nonbiodegradable plastic beverage containers.（B）
(E) Technological problems with recycling currently prevent the reuse as food or beverage containers of the plastic from either type of plastic beverage container.
16. Commentator: The theory of trade retaliation states that countries closed out of any of another country’s markets should close some of their own markets to the other country in order to pressure the other country to reopen its markets. If every country acted according to this theory, no country would trade with any other.
The commentator’s argument relies on which of the following assumptions?
(A) No country actually acts according to the theory of trade retaliation.
(B) No country should block any of its markets to foreign trade.
(C) Trade disputes should be settled by international tribunal.
(D) For any two countries, at least one has some market closed to the other.（D）
(E) Countries close their markets to foreigners to protect domestic producers.
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