9. A discount retailer of basic household necessities employs thousands of people and pays most of them at the minimum wage rate. Yet following a federally mandated increase of the minimum wage rate that increased the retailer’s operating costs considerably, the retailer’s profits increased markedly.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent paradox?
(A) Over half of the retailer’s operating costs consist of payroll expenditures; yet only a small percentage of those expenditures go to pay management salaries.
(B) The retailer’s customer base is made up primarily of people who earn, or who depend on the earnings of others who earn, the minimum wage.
(C) The retailer’s operating costs, other than wages, increased substantially after the increase in the minimum wage rate went into effect.
(D) When the increase in the minimum wage rate went into effect, the retailer also raised the wage rate for employees who had been earning just above minimum wage.（B）
(E) The majority of the retailer’s employees work as cashiers, and most cashiers are paid the minimum wage.
10. The cotton farms of Country Q became so productive that the market could not absorb all that they produced. Consequently, cotton prices fell. The government tried to boost cotton prices by offering farmers who took 25 percent of their cotton acreage out of production direct support payments up to a specified maximum per farm.
The government’s program, if successful, will not be a net burden on the budget. Which of the following, if true, is the best basis for an explanation of how this could be so?
(A) Depressed cotton prices meant operating losses for cotton farms, and the government lost revenue from taxes on farm profits.
(B) Cotton production in several counties other than Q declined slightly the year that the support-payment program went into effect in Q.
(C) The first year that the support-payment program was in effect, cotton acreage in Q was 5% below its level in the base year for the program.
(D) The specified maximum per farm meant that for very large cotton farms the support payments were less per acre for those acres that were withdrawn from production than they were for smaller farms.（A）
(E) Farmers who wished to qualify for support payments could not use the cotton acreage that was withdrawn from production to grow any other crop.
11. United States hospitals have traditionally relied primarily on revenues from paying patients to offset losses from unreimbursed care. Almost all paying patients now rely on governmental or private health insurance to pay hospital bills. Recently, insurers have been strictly limiting what they pay hospitals for the care of insured patients to amounts at or below actual costs.
Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information above?
(A) Although the advance of technology has made expensive medical procedures available to the wealthy, such procedures are out of the reach of low-income patients.
(B) If hospitals do not find ways to raising additional income for unreimbursed care, they must either deny some of that care or suffer losses if they give it.
(C) Some patients have incomes too high for eligibility for governmental health insurance but are unable to afford private insurance for hospital care.
(D) If the hospitals reduce their costs in providing care, insurance companies will maintain the current level of reimbursement, thereby providing more funds for unreimbursed care.（B）
(E) Even though philanthropic donations have traditionally provided some support for the hospitals, such donations are at present declining.
12. Generally scientists enter their field with the goal of doing important new research and accept as their colleagues those with similar motivation. Therefore, when any scientist wins renown as an expounder of science to general audiences, most other scientists conclude that this popularizer should no longer be regarded as a true colleague.
The explanation offered above for the low esteem in which scientific popularizers are held by research scientists assumes that
(A) serious scientific research is not a solitary activity, but relies on active cooperation among a group of colleagues
(B) research scientists tend not to regard as colleagues those scientists whose renown they envy
(C) a scientist can become a famous popularizer without having completed any important research
(D) research scientists believe that those who are well known as popularizers of science are not motivated to do important new research（D）
(E) no important new research can be accessible to or accurately assessed by those who are not themselves scientists
13. Mouth cancer is a danger for people who rarely brush their teeth. In order to achieve early detection of mouth cancer in these individuals, a town’s public health officials sent a pamphlet to all town residents, describing how to perform weekly self-examinations of the mouth for lumps.
Which of the following, if true, is the best criticism of the pamphlet as a method of achieving the public health officials’ goal?
(A) Many dental diseases produce symptoms that cannot be detected in a weekly self-examination.
(B) Once mouth cancer has been detected, the effectiveness of treatment can vary from person to person.
(C) The pamphlet was sent to all town residents, including those individuals who brush their teeth regularly.
(D) Mouth cancer is much more common in adults than in children.（E）
(E) People who rarely brush their teeth are unlikely to perform a weekly examination of their mouth.
14. Technological improvements and reduced equipment costs have made converting solar energy directly into electricity far more cost-efficient in the last decade. However, the threshold of economic viability for solar power (that is, the price per barrel to which oil would have to rise in order for new solar power plants to be more economical than new oil-fired power plants) is unchanged at thirty-five dollars.
Which of the following, if true, does most to help explain why the increased cost-efficiency of solar power has not decreased its threshold of economic viability?
(A) The cost of oil has fallen dramatically.
(B) The reduction in the cost of solar-power equipment has occurred despite increased raw material costs for that equipment.
(C) Technological changes have increased the efficiency of oil-fired power plants.
(D) Most electricity is generated by coal-fired or nuclear, rather than oil-fired, power plants.（C）
(E) When the price of oil increases, reserves of oil not previously worth exploiting become economically viable.
15. Start-up companies financed by venture capitalist have a much lower failure rate than companies financed by other means. Source of financing, therefore, must be a more important causative factor in the success of a start-up company than are such factors as the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur, the quality of strategic planning, or the management structure of the company.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?
(A) Venture capitalists tend to be more responsive than other sources of financing to changes in a start-up company’s financial needs.
(B) The strategic planning of a start-up company is a less important factor in the long-term success of the company than are the personal characteristics of the entrepreneur.
(C) More than half of all new companies fall within five years.
(D) The management structures of start-up companies are generally less formal than the management structures of ongoing businesses.（E）
(E) Venture capitalists base their decisions to fund start-up companies on such factors as the characteristics of the entrepreneur and quality of strategic planning of the company.
16. The proportion of women among students enrolled in higher education programs has increased over the past decades. This is partly shown by the fact that in 1959, only 11 percent of the women between twenty and twenty-one were enrolled in college, while in 1981, 30 percent of the women between twenty and twenty-one were enrolled in college.
To evaluate the argument above, it would be most useful to compare 1959 and 1981 with regard to which of the following characteristics?
(A) The percentage of women between twenty and twenty-one who were not enrolled in college
(B) The percentage of women between twenty and twenty-five who graduated from college
(C) The percentage of women who, after attending college, entered highly paid professions
(D) The percentage of men between twenty and twenty-one who were enrolled in college（D）
(E) The percentage of men who graduated from high school
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