A group of scientists have studied schizophrenics in an isolated community in Costa Rica with the objective of learning about the causes of schizophrenia worldwide. A flaw in this strategy is that schizophrenia is characterized by impaired emotional responses, and the way emotional responses are learned may differ across cultures of the world. It might even be fair to say that, on what is now a largely interconnected planet, a schizophrenic in an isolated community is a schizophrenic of no practical interest.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument made above about the group's approach?

A luxury car dealership in Taquitoville is expected to close due to competition from an Alexa dealership, which also sells luxury cars. Nevertheless, the demand for cars in Taquitoville will be sufficient for a new dealership to succeed as a new business. After all, in previous years, the Dealeo discount car dealership in Taquitoville has driven several other dealerships out of business, but in every case there has been sufficient demand for a new dealership to enter the city and be successful for a time.

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

Taaffeite costs more per ounce than painite. But since plutonium costs more per ounce than platinum, it follows that taaffeite costs more per ounce than platinum.

Any of the following, if introduced into the argument as an additional premise, makes the argument above logically correctEXCEPT:

Analyst: In our nation's television news programs, the number of stories aired about armed conflicts in Africa was much lower last year than it had been previously. Several armed conflicts have been fully or partly resolved with ceasefire agreements, so it is probable that the low number of articles is due to a decline in armed conflict in Africa.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the analyst's argument?

Since publicly traded companies opt to shield some negative information about their company from the market, negative information tends to be shared progressively less and in wider communication channels of a company's organization. The public is, therefore, has less negative information about a publicly traded company than do the company's employees of the most private circles, such as the CEO.

The conclusion drawn above is based on the assumption that

For similar homes and comparable residents, home insurance for theft has always cost more in Andover than in Wrightsville. Police studies, however, show that homes owned by Andover residents are, on average, slightly less likely to be robbed than homes in Wrightsville. Clearly, therefore, insurance companies are making a greater profit on home theft insurance in Andover than in Wrightsville.

In evaluating the argument, it would be most useful to compare

A production facility that requires its air to be free of particulate matter requires staff and visitors to enter the production floor by way of a single hallway that is interrupted at each of three points by a changing room. In each room, an entrant must change into a new lab jacket, a hat, and new clean shoe coverings after the room is blasted with air. The facility intends to speed up the process of entering the production facility by replacing the three rooms with two changing rooms of a new design whose method of blasting air is effective enough to maintain the required air quality.

Which of the following would be most important to know in determining whether the production facility's plan, if implemented, is likely to achieve its goal?

While our nation's law enforcement can search our bodily persons in public if they have just cause, they can search our homes only if they have a signed warrant. Therefore, our nation's law enforcement should be able to search our electronic communications only if they have a signed warrant.

The conclusion above would be more reasonably drawn if which of the following were inserted into the argument as an additional premise?

The rate of smoking, globally, is higher now than ever before. In fact, 20% more people smoke today than did 20 years ago. In the nation of Ebano, 20% of people smoke; in Paisi, 25%. And in the last twenty years, the number of people who smoke increased by 13% in Kitton and 27% in Kappa.

Which of the following conclusions can most properly be drawn from the information above?

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a disease in cattle that can spread to humans through the consumption of beef. A government ministry plans to reassure consumers of beef that sufficient controls are in place at farms to render nonexistent the risk of contracting BSE from beef. Prohibitions against cattle eating other cattle brain tissue and regulations on the treatment of cattle waste have been put in place and dramatically reduced BSE cases. But diagnosis of BSE is difficult: it has an incubation period of months to years, during which there are no symptoms. At present, there is virtually no way to detect BSE reliably except by examining post-mortem brain tissue. And beef is known to be produced and sold from cattle that have not undergone testing.

Which of the following, if performed by the government ministry, could logically be expected to overcome the problem with their plan to reassure consumers of beef?

Known to be antisocial birds, cuckoos are solitary animals that practice brood parasitism, whereby they plant their young in another bird's nest through deception and subterfuge so that the host bird will take on the burden of raising the cuckoo's offspring. However, the ani species of cuckoo is highly social; anis congregate with others of their kind and often trust humans. Scientists attribute the anis' more social behavior to communal living conditions that do not require antisocial behavior of the birds.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the scientists' explanation of anis' more social behavior?

Springfield's city council wants to minimize the city's average yearly expenditures on its parking meters and so is considering replacing the coin-operated meters currently in use with roadside kiosks at which parking slips can be purchased via credit card. Since many of the coin-operated meters require replacement, the costs associated with the conversion to credit card kiosks would be minimal.

Which of the following would it be most useful to know in determining whether switching to roadside kiosks would be likely to help minimize Springfield's yearly maintenance costs?

Management: Our position relative to our main competitor, which is located in the country of Patrio, has improved this year. The Patrian government has placed steep tariffs on imported steel, forcing our competitor to buy steel from sources inside the country at a much higher price. We can conclude that their costs have increased greatly this year, to levels much higher than ours, and they will be forced to deplete their cash reserves, leaving them with less cash in reserve than we will have to spend on marketing next year.

Which of the following conclusions is best supported by these comments about the management about its company and its competitor in Patrio?

Company A provides a business software for which companies pay an annual subscription fee, which includes help support provided by Company A's team of account managers. To reduce the cost of providing help support to half of last year's cost, Company A has redesigned its product offering to include two variants. To achieve this, Company A plans this year to move enough of its clients into a cheaper subscription that includes no access to help support to reduce the number of account managers to half of last year's number.

Which of the following is required for the redesigned product offering to achieve its aim?

Domestic agriculture is struggling because agriculture from overseas is available at lower prices. Since improved agrarian technology would enable domestic farmers to produce agriculture at more competitive costs, to improve the competitiveness of domestic agriculture, the government plans to subsidize domestic farmers, because as it pays subsidies directly to these domestic farmers, the farmers will have the funds they need to invest in technology.

Which of the following, if true, raises the most serious doubt regarding the effectiveness of the government's plan to improve the competitiveness of domestic agriculture?

An estimated three in four sea turtles fall prey to hungry birds, fish, or other perils in their first year, but those that survive have life expectancies of decades and can live over a century.

The ministry asserts that improvements in sentiment indicators are evidence that the economy will dodge the uncertainty that had been caused earlier by the euro debt crisis and instead grow by 1.8 percent in 2014.