TEST 4
SECTION I
Time 35 minutes 25 Questions
Directions: The questions in this section are based on the reasoning contained in brief statements or passages...
1. Something must be done to ease traffic congestion. In traditional small towns, people used to work and shop in the same town in which they lived; but now that stores and workplaces are located far away from residential areas, people cannot avoid traveling long distances each day. Traffic congestion is so heavy on all roads that, even on major highways where the maximum speed limit is 55 miles per hour, the actual speed averages only 35 miles per hour.
Which one of the following proposals is most supported by the statements above?
(A) The maximum speed limit on major highways should be increased.
(B) People who now travel on major highways should be encouraged to travel on secondary roads instead.
(C) Residents of the remaining traditional small towns should be encouraged to move to the suburbs.
(D) Drivers who travel well below the maximum speed limit on major highways should be fined.（E）
(E) New businesses should be encouraged to locate closer to where their workers would live.
2. College professor: College students do not write nearly as well as they used to. Almost all of the paper that my students have done for me this year have been poorly written and ungrammatical.
Which one of the following is the most serious weakness in the argument made by the professor?
(A) It requires confirmation that the change in the professor’s students is representative of a change among college students in general.
(B) It offers no proof to the effect that the professor is an accurate judge of writing ability.
(C) It does not take into account the possibility that the professor is a poor teacher.
(D) It fails to present contrary evidence.（A）
(E) It fails to define its terms sufficiently.
Questions 3-4
Mayor of Plainsville: In order to help the economy of Plainsville, I am using some of our tax revenues to help bring a major highway through the town and thereby attract new business to Plainsville.
Citizens’ group: You must have interests other than our economy in mind. If you were really interested in helping our economy, you would instead allocate the revenues to building a new business park, since it would bring in twice the business that your highway would.
3. The argument by the citizens’ group relies on which one of the following assumptions?
(A) Plainsville presently has no major highways running through it.
(B) The mayor accepts that a new business park would bring in more new business than would the new highway.
(C) The new highway would have no benefits for Plainsville other than attracting new business.
(D) The mayor is required to get approval for all tax revenue allocation plans from the city council.（B）
(E) Plainsville’s economy will not be helped unless a new business park of the sort envisioned by the citizens’ group is built.
4. Which one of the following principles, if accepted, would most help the citizens’ group to justify drawing its conclusion that the mayor has in mind interests other than Plainsville’s economy?
(A) Anyone really pursuing a cause will choose the means that that person believes will advance the cause the farthest.
(B) Any goal that includes helping the economy of a community will require public revenues in order to be achieved.
(C) Anyone planning to use resources collected from a group must consult the members of the group before using the resources.
(D) Any cause worth committing oneself to must include specific goals toward which one can work.（A）
(E) Any cause not pursued by public officials, if it is to be pursued at all, must be pursued by members of the community.
5. Recently, highly skilled workers in Eastern Europe have left jobs in record numbers to emigrate to the West. It is therefore likely that skilled workers who remain in Eastern Europe are in high demand in their home countries.
Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
(A) Eastern European factories prefer to hire workers from their home countries rather than to import workers from abroad.
(B) Major changes in Eastern European economic structures have led to the elimination of many positions previously held by the highly skilled emigrants.
(C) Many Eastern European emigrants need to acquire new skills after finding work in the West.
(D) Eastern European countries plan to train many new workers to replace the highly skilled workers who have emigrated.（B）
(E) Because of the departure of skilled workers from Eastern European countries, many positions are now unfilled.
6. Historian: Alexander the Great should not be judged by appeal to current notions of justice. Alexander, an ancient figure of heroic stature, should be judged by the standards of his own culture. That is, did he live up to his culture’s ideals of leadership? Did Alexander elevate the contemporary standards of justice? Was he, in his day, judged to be a just and wise ruler?
Student: But you cannot tell whether or not Alexander raised the contemporary standards of justice without invoking standards other than those of his own culture.
Which one of the following argumentative strategies does the student use in responding to the historian?
(A) arguing that applying the historian’s principle would require a knowledge of the past that is necessarily inaccessible to current scholarship
(B) attempting to undermine the historian’s principle by showing that some of its consequences are inconsistent with each other
(C) showing that the principle the historian invokes, when applied to Alexander, does not justify the assertion that he was heroic
(D) questioning the historian’s motivation for determining whether a standard of behavior has been raised or lowered（E）
(E) claiming that one of the historian’s criteria for judging Alexander is inconsistent with the principle that the historian has advanced
Questions 7-8
Two paleontologists, Dr Tyson and Dr. Rees, disagree over the interpretation of certain footprints that were left among other footprints in hardened volcanic ash at site G. Dr. Tyson claims they are clearly early hominid footprints since they show human characteristics: a squarish heel and a big toe immediately adjacent to the next toe. However, since the footprints indicate that if hominids made those prints they would have had to walk in an unexpected cross-stepping manner, by placing the left foot to the right of the right foot. Dr. Rees rejects Dr. Tyson’s conclusion.
7. The disagreement between the two paleontologists is over which one of the following?
(A) the relative significance of various aspects of the evidence
(B) the assumption that early hominid footprints are distinguishable from other footprints
(C) the possibility of using the evidence of footprints to determine the gait of the creature that made those footprints
(D) the assumption that evidence from one paleontologic site is enough to support a conclusion（A）
(E) the likelihood that early hominids would have walked upright on two feet
8. Which one of the following, if true, most seriously undermines Dr. Tyson’s conclusion?
(A) The foot prints showing human characteristics were clearly those of at least two distinct individuals.
(B) Certain species of bears had feet very like human feet, except that the outside toe on each foot was the biggest toe and the innermost toe was the smallest toe.
(C) Footprints shaped like a human’s that do not show a cross-stepping pattern exist at site M, which is a mile away from site G, and the two sets of footprints are contemporaneous.
(D) When the moist volcanic ash became sealed under additional layers of ash before hardening, some details of some of the footprints were erased.（B）
(E) Most of the other footprints at site G were of animals with hooves.
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