A "vice tax" can suppress demand for a product or service that is not wholly in the public's favor by making it more expensive. The country of Balbonia wished to duplicate Geraldia's success in using a vice tax to reduce the sales of nicotine products, such as cigarettes. When Balbonia introduced the same tax into its market, however, demand for nicotine products remained undiminished, even though the currency-adjusted prices of nicotine in Balbonia rose to levels equivalent to those in Geraldia.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the contrasting impact of the two instances of vice tax described above?

Archeologists have discovered ancient coins near Antioch in modern Turkey, minted by a variety of neighboring countries, that date from the time of the Roman Empire. The archaeologists have inferred that, under the rule of the Roman Empire, Antioch was transformed into a major center of trade.

Which of the following would, if true, most significantly strengthen the archeologists' inference?

Women who are married sleep more soundly than women who have never married or lost a partner, according to research from an eight-year study. Furthermore, it is well established that sleeping less than six hours a night makes you 12% more likely to die prematurely than someone who sleeps up to eight hours. Therefore, getting married increases a woman's life expectancy.

Which of the following, if true, does NOT strengthen the argument above?

Pundit: Many people blame the construction of retail locations by major corporations for the decline in locally owned bookstores over the past ten years. Yet clearly, online sales of books have also played an important role in this decline. In the past ten years, sales by online retailers of books have risen sharply, and surveys of consumer behavior have indicated that many purchasers of books online, if convenient online options had not been available to them, would otherwise have purchased books at a local bookstore.

In the pundit's argument, the portion in boldface plays which of the following roles?

Which of the following most logically completes the passage?

Archeologists believe a group of ancient tombs near the seaside town of Absuir, Egypt is home to the burial of the queen Cleopatra VII's lover Mark Antony in the year 30 B.C. They base their judgment on the site's proximity to Alexandria and on the discovery of a partial mask showing a cleft chin reminiscent of Mark Antony, which, as is customary with burials of Egyptian rulers, would have been included with or near the mummified body at the time of the burial. Furthermore, _______________.

One method of predicting the future value of a particular company's stock is to attempt to correlate the pattern of its recent performance with the past performance of other companies, even companies in different industries, whose subsequent stock performance is known. This technique, known as "technical analysis," provides a readily available basis for predicting the future value of a company's stock without special knowledge of that company or its industry.

Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion that technical analysis, as described above, accurately predicts stock performance?

In the city of North Haverbrook, where a new tourism industry is growing, hotels have been booked to capacity and forced to turn away potential visitors with increasing frequency during the two peak months of tourist season. The annual number of desired room bookings is expected to increase by 25 percent within the next four years. Meanwhile, the local chamber of commerce believes that the establishment of new hotels will increase booking capacity by only 3 percent per year. Nevertheless, the chamber believes that this growth in the hotel industry will be sufficient to ensure that North Haverbrook's hotels do not turn away more potential bookings than they presently do.

Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest grounds for the officials' prediction?

A number of college students were recruited by the psychology department to participate in a paid, unspecified experiment, which turned out to be a menial, monotonous counting exercise. Unbeknownst to the students, half of the participants were paid a meager rate for their participation, while half received a generous rate. After the counting exercise was complete, each student was asked questions on his or her perception of the counting exercise. Surprisingly, the participants who had been paid less reported higher levels of enjoyment in completing the exercise than the higher-paid participants did.

Which of the following hypotheses, if true, best accounts for the findings of the experiment?

A quark-gluon plasma, a hypothesized phase of quantum chromodynamics of interest to physicists, is supposed to exist at conditions of extremely high temperature or density that never naturally occur on Earth. The conditions engendering quark-gluon plasma were thought to have occurred in the first hundred microseconds or so of the universe. It follows that physicists will never be able to observe quark-gluon plasma.

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

Because they can craft objects of a new design without having extrusion fittings custom-designed for that purpose, 3D printers have an application in building prototypes of new models of objects long before those new models are on production lines, and it was on this basis that they first captured the interest of the market. However, suitability for prototyping does not limit 3D printers to prototyping, and in fact their capability to craft items without specialized fittings for each design can allow them, in essence, to be the production line. 3D printers have this natural application to mass-production in part because they can produce items at a cost competitive with that of production lines.

In the argument given, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

Wappo, a company that manufactures turbine blades for hydroelectric dams, has designed a new model of blade with a superior hydrodynamic form that will save energy and hence cost in implementation. Wappo is willing to sell these blades to a particular hydroelectric dam at no initial cost. The only payment will be the difference between, first, a percentage of the dam's improved profits, as measured by the percentage improvement of the hydroelectric dam efficiency times the value of energy sold by the plant over an 18-month period, and, second, the additional cost of installation and maintenance of the new turbines. On installation, the dam will make an estimated payment, which will be adjusted after eighteen months to equal the proper amount.

Which of the following, if it occurred, would constitute a disadvantage for Wappo of the plan described above?

Recently, scientists determined that great white sharks can live over 70 years, much longer than had been previously thought. They made the discovery by examining the layers of different colors that accumulated on the shark's teeth over the years. In the 1950s, atomic bomb testing produced unusually large amounts of carbon-14, which fell from the atmosphere into the ocean and accumulated as a distinctive layer on the shark's teeth corresponding to a known period in time. Perplexingly, even though great white sharks live longer than had been expected, some parties maintain that based on the new findings, the great white sharks must be protected from overfishing.

Which of the following, if true, best resolves the discrepancy identified above?

Seattle's osprey population has been declining in recent years, primarily because of hunting, both legal and illegal. Osprey prey heavily on salmon, yet the naturally occurring population of salmon has also declined, even though the annual number caught for human consumption has not increased.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the decline in the population of the salmon?

A small company with a radical four-day work week system is considering changing its policy. Currently, this company requires all employees to arrive at work in the company's office Monday through Thursday; they need not work Friday. The proposed policy would permit each employee every week to choose one day from Monday to Friday not to work.

The adoption of this policy would be most likely to decrease employees' productivity if the employees' job functions required them to

Through Topeka airport, the volume of plane travel is just enough for the commercial airlines to make modest profits. The size of the city's population is stable and is not expected to increase much. Yet there are investors ready to double the number of flights to and from the airport within ten years, and they are predicting solid profits both for themselves and for the established airlines.

Which of the following about the city of Topeka, if true, most helps to provide a justification for the investors' prediction?

In early civilizations, the development of early calendar systems—motivated most often by the desire to improve crop production—often coincided with the advancement of mathematics and astronomy. Granted, the practice of studying celestial bodies also gave rise to astrology and religion, which often had the effect of slowing the progress of the former two areas. Nevertheless, the inhibiting effect of astrology and religion is unlikely to have a lasting impact on mathematical and astronomical progress. Therefore, in all likelihood, the advancement of agrarian science, by motivating the development of measuring seasons and time, led to improved understanding of mathematics and astronomy in early civilizations.

In the argument given, the two boldfaced portions play which of the following roles?

Recently in our county, sales of beer have suffered a significant decline in restaurants, nightlife establishments, and retail stores. During this same time, the sheriff's office has initiated a new and well-funded campaign against the short-term dangers and long-term health risks caused by alcohol consumption. Therefore, the decrease in beer consumption has been caused by consumers' awareness of the dangers and risks of alcohol consumption.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the explanation above?

Which of the following best completes the passage below?

The movie production company's estimate of financial losses due to the illegal download of movies cannot be correct, because it's a measure of the wrong phenomenon. Most of illegal downloading of movies is done exclusively by people who have a passing interest in the movies but no intention of buying them, as they appear to assume. Thus, the loss to the industry is

A new café intends to open and offer to its patrons unusual beverages served in an unusual atmosphere. Prior to beginning construction on its location, it had already secured funding based on the quality of its beverages, which it served to potential investors. But when it conducted intensive tests to gauge the interest of potential customers, it tested not whether they liked the beverages, but whether they liked descriptions of the café's atmosphere.

Which of the following, if true, best accounts for the new café's approach to conducting tests with potential customers?

Callers to a customer help line frequently complained about the quality of service. Seventy percent of survey respondents cited the services agents' lack of knowledge of how to solve the problems they were calling about. To address the problem, management decided that each service agent should go through regular training. Each agent spent half a day each week in sessions covering how to respond to callers' problems. Nevertheless, after three months of training, the rate of caller complaints has not decreased.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain why the training failed to achieve its goal?