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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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Magazine Publisher: Our magazine does not have a liberal bias. It is true that when a book review we had commissioned last year turned out to express distinctly conservative views, we did not publish it until we had also obtained a second review that took a strongly liberal position. Clearly, however, our actions demonstrate not a bias in favor of liberal views but rather a commitment to a balanced presentation of diverse opinions.Determining which of the following would be most useful in evaluating the cogency of the magazine publisher's response?
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PREP08 Test 1
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Though sucking zinc lozenges has been promoted as a treatment for the common cold, research has revealed no consistent effect. Recently, however, a zinc gel applied nasally has been shown to greatly reduce the duration of colds. Since the gel contains zinc in the same form and concentration as the lozenges, the greater effectiveness of the gel must be due to the fact that cold viruses tend to concentrate in the nose, not the mouth.Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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Of patients over 65 years old who survived coronary bypass surgery-a procedure widely prescribed for people with heart disease-only 75 percent benefited from the surgery. Thus it appears that for one in four such patients, the doctors who advised them to undergo this surgery, with its attendant risks and expense, were more interested in an opportunity to practice their skills and in their fee than in helping the patient.Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the argument?
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PREP08 Test 1
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Personnel officer: The exorbitant cost of our health-insurance benefits reflects the high dollar amount of medical expenses incurred by our employees. Employees who are out of shape, as a group, have higher doctor bills and longer hospital stays than do their colleagues who are fit. Therefore, since we must reduce our health-insurance costs, we should offer a rigorous fitness program of jogging and weight lifting to all employees, and require employees who are out of shape to participate.Which of the following, if true, provides the most support for the personnel officer's proposal?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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Unless tiger hunting decreases, tigers will soon be extinct in the wild. The countries in which the tigers' habitats are located are currently debating joint legislation that would ban tiger hunting. Thus, if these countries can successfully enforce this legislation, the survival of tigers in the wild will be ensured.The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument
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OG12 OG15 OG16 OG17 PREP08 Test 1
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Last year a record number of new manufacturing jobs were created. Will this year bring another record? Well, a new manufacturing job is created either within an existing company or by the start-up of a new company. Within existing firms, new jobs have been created this year at well below last year's record pace. At the same time, there is considerable evidence that the number of new companies starting up will be no higher this year than it was last year, and surely the new companies starting up this year will create no more jobs per company than did last year's start-ups. Clearly, it can be concluded that the number of new jobs created this year will fall short of last year's record.In the argument given, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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Outbreaks of Rift Valley fever occur irregularly in East Africa, several years apart. When outbreaks do occur, they kill thousands of cattle. A livestock vaccine against the disease exists but is rarely used. It is too expensive for farmers to use routinely, and since it is not effective until a month after vaccination, administering it after an outbreak begins helps very little. Nevertheless, experts predict that use of the vaccine will increase significantly within the next few years.Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest justification for the experts' prediction?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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The emission of sulfur dioxide when high-sulfur coal is burned is restricted by law. New coal-burning plants usually comply with the law by installing expensive equipment to filter sulfur dioxide from their emissions. These new plants could save money by installing instead less expensive cleaning equipment that chemically removes most sulfur from coal before combustion.Which of the following, if known, would be most relevant to evaluating the claim above about how new coal-burning plants could save money?
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OG12 OG15 OG16 OG17 GWD PREP08 Test 1
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The growing popularity of computer-based activities was widely expected to result in a decline in television viewing, since it had been assumed that people lack sufficient free time to maintain current television-viewing levels while spending increasing amounts of free time on the computer. That assumption, however, is evidently false: in a recent mail survey concerning media use, a very large majority of respondents who report increasing time spent per week using computers report no change in time spent watching television.In order to evaluate the argument, it would be most useful to determine which of the following?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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Newspaper editorial:In an attempt to reduce the crime rate, the governor is getting tough on criminals and making prison conditions harsher. Part of this effort has been to deny inmates the access they formerly had to college-level courses. However, this action is clearly counter to the governor's ultimate goal, since after being released from prison, inmates who had taken such courses committed far fewer crimes overall than other inmates.Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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The ancient Nubians inhabited an area in which typhus occurs, yet surprisingly few of their skeletons show the usual evidence of this disease. The skeletons do show deposits of tetracycline, an antibiotic produced by a bacterium common in Nubian soil. This bacterium can flourish on the dried grain used for making two staples of the Nubian diet, beer and bread. Thus, tetracycline in their food probably explains the low incidence of typhus among ancient Nubians.Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument relies?
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GWD PREP2012 PREP08 Test 1
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In a study conducted in Pennsylvania, servers in various restaurants wrote "Thank you" on randomly selected bills before presenting the bills to their customers. Tips on these bills were an average of three percentage points higher than tips on bills without the message. Therefore, if servers in Pennsylvania regularly wrote "Thank you" on restaurant bills, their average income from tips would be significantly higher than it otherwise would have been.Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument relies?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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From 1973 to 1976, total United States consumption of cigarettes increased 3.4 percent, and total sales of chewing tobacco rose 18.0 percent. During the same period, total United States population increased 5.0 percent.If the statements above are true, which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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Political advocacy groups have begun to use information services to disseminate information that is then accessed by the public via personal computer. Since many groups are thus able to bypass traditional news sources, whose reporting is selective, and to present their political views directly to the public, information services present a more balanced picture of the complexities of political issues than any traditional news source presents.Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument above depends?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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Personnel officer: The exorbitant cost of our health-insurance benefits reflects the high dollar amount of medical expenses incurred by our employees. Employees who are out of shape, as a group, have higher doctor bills and longer hospital stays than do their colleagues who are fit. Therefore, since we must reduce our health-insurance costs, we should offer a rigorous fitness program of jogging and weight lifting to all employees, and require employees who are out of shape to participate.The conclusion reached by the personnel officer depends on which of the following assumptions?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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In the United States, of the people who moved from one state to another when they retired, the percentage who retired to Florida has decreased by three percentage points over the past ten years. Since many local businesses in Florida cater to retirees, this decline is likely to have a noticeably negative economic effect on these businesses.Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
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GWD PREP08 Test 1
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Which of the following most logically completes the argument?Researchers recently asked dozens of shoppers, chosen at random coming out of a FoodBasket supermarket, what they had purchased. The prices of the very same items at the nearest ShopperKing supermarket were totaled and compared with the FoodBasket total. The ShopperKing totals averaged five percent higher than the FoodBasket totals. Nevertheless, this result does not necessarily show that shoppers at ShopperKing would save money overall by shopping at FoodBasket instead, since ______.
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OG12 OG15 OG16 OG17 GWD PREP08 Test 1 OG18
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Trancorp currently transports all its goods to Burland Island by truck. The only bridge over the channel separating Burland from the mainland is congested, and trucks typically spend hours in traffic. Trains can reach the channel more quickly than trucks, and freight cars can be transported to Burland by barges that typically cross the channel in an hour. Therefore, to reduce shipping time, Trancorp plans to switch to trains and barges to transport goods to Burland.Which of the following would be most important to know in determining whether Trancorp's plan, if implemented, is likely to achieve its goal?
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PREP08 Test 1
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Margaret Mead, the best-known anthropologist of the twentieth century, helped shape public opinion on fundamentally important areas like attitudes toward children and families, along with the relative merits of competition and cooperation.
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OG12 OG15 OG16 OG17 GWD PREP08 Test 1
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One of the primary distinctions between our intelligence with that of other primates may lay not so much in any specific skill but in our ability to extend knowledge gained in one context to new and different ones.
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