Admission Tests Admission Tests Certifications GMAT Questions & Answers

• Question 1:

  The passage is primarily concerned with doing which of the following?

  A. Surveying the different mechanisms that plants adopt to defend themselves from predators

  B. Citing an experiment that explains why a certain kind of organism has difficulty in locating its prey

  C. Providing an example of farmers' current use of one insect to prey on another that damages their crops

  D. Describing an instance in which one kind of organism exploits the behavior of another kind of organism in order to protect itself from a predator

  E. Describing an instance in which one kind of organism defends itself from predators by mimicking the behavior of another kind of organism

  Correct Answer: D

  Parasitic wasps propagate by injecting their eggs into a caterpillar that then becomes paralyzed as the eggs inside develop into wasp larvae. The wasp larvae kill the caterpillar host as they feed on it, form cocoons, and finally develop into wasps. In attempting to discover how such wasps detect the presence of the caterpillar hosts that are so critical to the wasps' propagation, researchers have uncovered an intriguing defense mechanism developed by the plants on which the caterpillars feed. When chewed on, many plants release volatile compounds from both damaged and undamaged tissues. When these compounds are toxic to the insects that feed on the plants, they can help defend the plants from such attacks. However, the plants on which the wasps' caterpillar hosts feed have evolved an even more complex defense: the caterpillar-infested plants appear to release volatile chemicals that attract parasitic wasps, which then prey on the caterpillars. Scientists originally suspected that the wasps were attracted by an odor, reminiscent of cut grass, that is released as the caterpillar feeds, but a recent study suggests that a different set of volatile attractants is involved. In this study, when researchers used a razor blade to mimic caterpillar damage on the leaves, only grassy odors were emitted, not the volatile compounds that attracted wasps. However, when oral secretions from the caterpillars were applied to these damaged leaves, the leaves released the wasp attractants several hours later. Further tests revealed that oral secretions placed on the razor-damaged leaves stimulated the release of such attractants, making the plants as attractive to wasps as plants that had suffered actual caterpillar damage. These results suggest that chemicals from the caterpillar must be present for these attractants to be released and that unlike the grassy scent, which emanates only as the caterpillar on the plant, the wasp attractants are produced several hours after the attack and persist for several hours, perhaps days. Researchers have launched additional studies to determine whether the wasps' capacity to prey on caterpillars can be enhanced to the extent that the wasps could be used as a natural pesticide to "police" plants and protect them from crop- destroying caterpillars.

• Question 2:

  Wildlife management seeks to ensure that there are sufficient numbers of reproductive adults, particularly adult females, to maintain the population of any particular species at a level sustainable by the environment. This Involves setting upper limits, by sex and age, on the number of animals that hunters may take during specified periods of the hunting season. To determine these upper Smlts, wildlife managers plan to collect data about the sex and age of animals killed by hunters during each hunting season, by examining random samples of the animals' teeth. They will then use the resulting information to set the upper limits for the following year's hunting season.

  Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the prediction that the managers' plan, if implemented, will achieve the stated goal of wildlife management?

  A. Some hunting is known to occur outside of the legally defined hunting season.

  B. Adult females of the relevant species tend to give birth to an equal number of males and females.

  C. The environment is becoming less able to sustain wildlife.

  D. Most of the legal restrictions on hunting are regarded as reasonable by the majority of haters.

  E. Most animal deaths among hunted species are due to hunting.

  Correct Answer: E

• Question 3:

  Morowa: As a general rule, those responsible for harming the environment should be responsible for fixing it. Thus, businesses should pay for and clean up environmental problems they cause.

  Thema: Are the businesses the only ones responsible? Oftentimes, consumers drive businesses to produce products in environmentally damaging ways by primarily purchasing inexpensive items that disproportionally result in greater environmental harm.

  Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest support for Morowa's argument in light of Thema's reply?

  A. Consumers of such products know that they are responsible for harming the environment.

  B. At least some consumers purchase products that they know are environmentally friendly.

  C. Most consumers purchase at least some products that do not substantially harm the environment.

  D. Being inexpensive does not necessarily result in environmental harm.

  E. Having businesses pay for and clean up their environmental problems can pass along some of the cost to consumers.

  Correct Answer: E

• Question 4:

  

  A. Statement (1) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (2) atone is not sufficient.

  B. Statement (2) ALONE is sufficient, but statement (1) atone is not sufficient

  C. BOTH statements TOGETHER are sufficient, but NEITHER statement ALONE is sufficient.

  D. EACH statement ALONE is sufficient.

  E. Statements (1) and (2) TOGETHER are NOT sufficient.

  Correct Answer: D

• Question 5:

  Despite his renowned contributions to resolving archaeological questions, he was unable to provide hardly any insight into reconciling the conflicting linguistic and cultural evidence with respect to the expansion of agriculture.

  A. hardly any insight into reconciling the conflicting linguistic and cultural evidence with respect to the expansion of agriculture

  B. hardly any insight about reconciling the conflicting linguistic and cultural evidence on agriculture expanding

  C. much insight into how the conflicting linguistic and cultural evidence about the expansion of agriculture could be reconciled

  D. much insight to reconciling the conflicting linguistic and cultural evidence about how agriculture expanded

  E. hardly any insight for how the conflicting linguistic and cultural evidence about agriculture's expansion could reconcile

  Correct Answer: C

• Question 6:

  The passage takes up the issue of aggregation of data in order to

  A. show how it provides a basis for minimizing large variations in the amount of goods produced over time and thus reduces costs

  B. consider the possibility that it masked the applicability of the production smoothing model for individual firms

  C. contrast the use of inventory as buffer with its use to smooth production

  D. describe a method of extracting meaningful information from slight individual variations

  E. provide a reason why the production-smoothing buffer model is inadequate to represent the actual situation of production

  Correct Answer: B

  According to the production-smoothing buffer stock model, inventories of a firm's products allow it to supply unexpected demand without having to adjust Output immediately. When costs per additional unit produced are increasing, using inventory to smooth production is efficient as long as the savings from not adjusting production exceed the cost of holding inventory. Inventory acts as a buffer stock, absorbing increases or decreases in demand while production remains relatively steady. If firms are smoothing production, then sales should vary more than production. If inventories are used as a buffer stock, then high-frequency changes in inventory should be in the opposite direction to sales. Empirical research using aggregate data daes not confirm this expectation, however; production varies more than sales, and changes in inventory and sales tend to vary in the same direction. Thus either the production-smoothing buffer stock model is incorrect, or other factors are preventing empirical confirmation of the smoothing effect. Most of the research that finds contradictions of production smoothing uses seasonally adjusted aggregate data concerning inventory and sales. It is possible that firms actually do use inventory to smooth production, but the research has failed to detect signs of this activity because the data are too highly aggregated over many firms. But even research at the level of individual companies has failed to confirm the model.

• Question 7:

  Taking as her focus Bengali-language books of household advice, the author traces how colonialism gradually reconfigured daily domestic life, with the result that familial and domestic authority, once held by elder women, was replaced by that of the modern colonial husband.

  A. familial and domestic authority, once held by elder women, was

  B. elder women's authority was in familial and domestic matters

  C. authority over familial and domestic matters held by elder women was

  D. elder women, the authorities in familial and domestic matters, were

  E. the authority of elder women in familial and domestic matters was

  Correct Answer: E

• Question 8:

  Company J is reducing its information technology (IT) staff by one-half but is requiring the IT department to continue meeting all the IT needs of the employees. IT managers plan to accomplish this by investing in a computer program that relieves employees of the need to remember their passwords for logging in to Company J's numerous office systems. Half of the IT staffs time is currently spent on password-related assistance, so once the program is implemented, Company J can make the required staff cuts.

  Which of the following would it be most useful to know in order to evaluate whether the IT managers' plan is feasible as a means to continue meeting the IT needs of the employees?

  A. Whether the initial cost of the password software exceeds the annual salaries of several IT staff salaries

  B. Whether employees who request password assistance ateo request other IT assistance

  C. Whether employees whose work requires computer passwords will need to be trained to use the software

  D. Whether any IT staff currently devote aH their time to password-related assistance

  E. Whether the password software requires extensive maintenance by IT staff members

  Correct Answer: D

• Question 9:

  The decision as to when to bring charges for a criminal offense is the prerogative of the prosecutor, not the prospective defendant. This prerogative should not be put to unfair advantage. Sometimes decades elapse before charges are brought. Though this may be appropriate when striking new evidence implicates someone, bringing charges after many years simply because evidence favoring the prospective defendant has become inaccessible would be grossly unjust.

  Which of the following most accurately states the passage's main point?

  A. There should be safeguards to prevent criminal prosecutors from taking unfair advantage of the prerogative to decide when charges will be brought against a prospective defendant.

  B. Criminal prosecutors have an advantage over prospective defendants in that prosecutors get to decide when, if at all, charges will be brought.

  C. Criminal prosecutors should not take unfair advantage of their prerogative to decide when criminal charges will be brought against a prospective defendant.

  D. In some cases, it is unfair for a prosecutor, many years after an alleged offense has occurred, to bring charges against a prospective defendant for committing that offense.

  E. To bring charges against a prospective defendant after a delay of many years would be unjust.

  Correct Answer: D

• Question 10:

  According to the passage, Edelman has made innovations in the study of which of the following?

  A. The behavior of multicelular organs

  ii. The molecular structure of animal and plant tissue

  III. The overall structure of complex organisms

  B. i only

  C. ii only

  D. III only

  E. i and ii only

  F. ii and III only

  Correct Answer: B

  What makes a rhinoceros look like a rhinoceros, or a petunia like a petunia? Understanding the basis of the generation of the forms, patterns, or shapes of complex organisms is a principal subject of biologist Gerald Edelman's stimulating book Topobiology, which explores the links among the development, evolution, form, and function of organisms. In older scientific language, one could say that Edelman has brought a new dimension to morphology, the study of the form and shape of animate and plants, and to histology, the study of the minute structure of tissues. The major thrust of his book te what he calls a morphoregulatory hypothesis, which can be described as the outline of a molecular basis for the formation of pattern, involving three types of genes. In the morphoregulatory sequence, morphoregulatory genes control the production of molecules that cause the formation of clusters of cells. When the cell dusters begin to communicate, they activate another type (selector genes) that then select and switch on a third type of gene (historegulatory genes). In the organisms they have studied, Edelman and his colleagues have found cell adhesion molecules (resulting from morphoregulatory gene action) that are attached to the surface of different cells and link them in clusters. These molecules can appear at different times in the development of a multicellular system, and at various specific sites on the cells. Furthermore, their chemical structure can vary. This tremendous variation allows a great flexibility in the kinds of linkages the molecules effect. A second class of adhesion molecules plays a comparable role In attaching cells to the developing scaffolding of filaments that lie outside cells. Also of particular interest to researchers are what are called cell Junction molecules, composed of clusters of proteins providing small channels from the inside of one cell to the Inside of another. These three types of molecules facilitate a kind of conversation among eels that determines the course of development of organisms. It has been possible to demonstrate how Important these molecules are by treating tissues with agents that block their functions, thus effectively and drastically changing the organism's development.