Electronics can rust if their surface metals contain iron and are exposed to the atmosphere. Polyethylene, the chemical used in most plastic products, can protect metals from the atmosphere. Iron is non-reactive with polyethylene and polyethylene is readily available to electronics manufacturers. When the surfaces of electronics were treated with polyethylene coatings and exposed to the atmosphere, none of them became rusted during the period they were observed.

In deciding whether polyethylene coating would be useful in producing rust-free electronics for sale to consumers, it would be most helpful to determine which of the following?

The Committee for Road Safety published a press release stating that car tires will develop wear through normal use, and that this wear can cause brake failures and traffic accidents. The committee stated that, on average, such wear can begin to develop in as few as three years. Because of this, most motorists should purchase and install new tires every three years, if not more often.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion above?

Microchip Manufacturer’s Press Release: Electronic Analysis Quarterly described the DuoCore k457 as having the lowest failure rate of any computer processor in its category. This indicates that the DuoCore k457 may be the most reliable chip on the market.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument in the advertisement?

Due to efficiency concerns, store management is thinking about pulling employees from longer, eight-hour shifts and assigning them to shorter shifts of four or five hours, coinciding with periods of peak customer traffic. It makes little sense to change schedules like this, however, as studies have shown that customers are less satisfied when they shop at stores whose employees work abbreviated hours. A customer unsatisfied when shopping during peak hours is unlikely to remain a customer for very long.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument given?

A proposed rule requires the installation of guardrails on all traffic bridges in the state of Willericka. However, an engineer argued that because traffic accidents on bridges account for only 2 percent of all traffic accidents in Willericka, guardrails would do little to reduce the number of traffic injuries.

Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the engineer’s argument?

Larger national education budgets do not produce higher scores on international standardized tests. If they did, countries with the highest education budgets would likewise have the highest standardized test scores. In fact, when education budget figures are analyzed in such a way as to make them readily comparable between countries, any correlation between the two factors is negligible.

If the statements above are all true, which of the following can properly be inferred on the basis of them?

Investors heavily scrutinize the future prospects of a company when deciding whether to buy stock. If a company is expected to do well, its stock price rises; if it is not expected to profit, its stock price falls. Flyfar, Inc. was just awarded a contract to build a large fleet of airplanes for one of the major airlines. Therefore, prices of Flyfar’s stock will rise sharply today.

Which of the following, if true, most weakens the argument above?

Consumer advocate: Your company’s cars are likely to require major repairs in the third year after customers buy them. This shows that you intend for your cars to break down at the end of the two-year warranty period.

Car manufacturer: Our cars require fewer repairs in the first five years of ownership than our major competitor’s cars do.

The car manufacturer’s response is flawed as a refutation of the consumer advocate’s argument because it

The city government of Sporaville has not, in the past, made the purchase of departmental office supplies subject to any approval. A new rule will requires all purchases of office supplies to be approved by the manager of the government office purchasing the supplies. The rule is intended to save the government money by holding a single person accountable for expenses.

Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest reasoning for the city government’s decision?

Between 2000 and 2010, the number of bass in the Mississippi River and its tributaries experienced a catastrophic decline. There is little evidence that pollution or disease was the cause, so it is likely that there was an increase in the number of bass killed by other means. Typically, recreational fishermen in the region prefer to pursue several varieties of river trout, but a state law passed in 2001 banned the catching of trout in the area. Thus, it is likely that recreational fishing was the immediate cause of the decline of the bass population.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?

Even though a few of the manuscripts found recently in southern Germany would seem to corroborate popular accounts of early-medieval migrations, the abundance of ambiguous sources seem more likely at the moment that they will prolong controversy over the patterns of migration rather than resolve them.

The few things known about the Eleusinian mysteries come from ancient sources who either participated in the cult’s rites and secrets or merely pretended to be privy to such things.

Once extremely expensive and used primarily for ornamental or decorative purposes, a metal now known as aluminum, which can be effective in an ever-expanding suite of production applications for a relatively low cost, is now used in food packaging, structural engineering, and bicycle manufacture.

Alan Moore, in his graphic novel narratives, deliberately infusing them with his intellectual interests, used his incisive mind to revolutionize what were once considered “mere comic books.”

The 24-year-old novelist and poet released her latest novel all over the United States, Canada, and Great Britain last year, earning glowing reviews in both New York as well as Vancouver for her exceptional stylistic grace, and she is expecting to return to writing once she has completed her book tour.

The Securities Exchange Commission has issued a press release indicating that the global recession, an event most economists think to be spurred by banks in offering bad loans, will have concluded by year’s end, with most economic sectors witnessing substantial growth.

Though looking less distinctive than many of their highly sought-after purebred counterparts, mixed-breed dogs, born from a pair of different dog breeds—they usually display various physical characteristics from each parent—they are often healthier than purebreds and thus increasingly popular.

August is typically the weakest month for purchases of heavy jackets, but purchases this August, even when compared with purchases in past Augusts, constituted an exceptionally low percentage of all garment purchases.

Because there are stipulations of the new corporate policy that mandate that even basic transactions can be the catalyst for legal claims to restitution or reimbursement, they have already caused a radical reevaluation of the methods sales staff use to do business.

The construction of Foxboro Stadium, which was officially known as Schaefer Stadium, started in 1970, during the governorship of Francis Sargent, was completed a year later, during the same administration.