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• Question 101:

  Editorial: Since our city's airport is too small to handle increasing air traffic, analysts propose building a second airport to benefit our city's economy by allowing more flights and hence attracting more visitors. But this plan would not succeed. If

  flights to different cities were inconveniently divided between two airports, fewer travelers would make flight connections in our city.

  Which of the following would, if true, most seriously weaken the editorial's argument that the plan would not succeed'

  A. A reduction in travelers flying to a city's airport merely to make flight connections does not preclude a significant increase in travelers visiting the city itself.

  B. The number of flights to an airport typically increases as the number of travelers making flight connections increases.

  C. Building a second airport would not benefit the city's economy unless it increased the number of travelers through the city's airport.

  D. If fewer travelers make flight connections through an airport, the number of flights through that airport typically declines.

  E. Some of the cities that, for their size, attract relatively large numbers of visitors have only one airport.

  Correct Answer: A

• Question 102:

  The reference to the psychologists' suggestion (see highlighted text) functions primarily to

  A. justify the application of studies from the decision-heuristics literature to bottom-up selling

  B. help explain the effectiveness of top-down selling

  C. explain why there are some situations in which customers are unable to use rules of thumb in making buying decisions

  D. demonstrate how the effectiveness of the bottom-up strategy is limited by the complexity of the information available to the customer

  E. reinforce the assessment of bottom-up selling suggested by applying anchoring-and- adjustment theory

  Correct Answer: D

  Salespersons have employed two major sales tactics in order to influence customers to make relatively high-priced selections when presented with sequenced product lines (lines with graduated attributes and prices). The top-down tactic begins by presenting information on the highest-priced model and descends down the product line, explaining the sacrifices made with each step down. The way people use decision heuristics (rules of thumb) to simplify complex, information-rich decision tasks may explain the success of top-down selling. The "anchoring-and-adjustment" theory suggests that such mental shortcuts can systematically bias the decision outcome, as decision-makers start from an initial value or anchor point and adjust to yield a final decision. The bottom-up sales tactic starts by presenting the lowest- priced model as the reference point and steps up to higher-priced models. Salespersons seek to communicate that the more expensive item is actually a better value. But nothing in the decision-heuristics literature supports the bottom-up strategy as an effective tactic, and to the extent that the anchoring-and- adjustment theory explains the effectiveness of top-down selling, it suggests that the bottom-up tactic should be ineffective. Furthermore, some psychologists suggest that customers may attribute less honesty and credibility to a salesperson who is trying to step them up the product line to a more expensive model; if true, this could limit the tactic's effectiveness.

• Question 103:

  While we believe that supporters of this measure are well-meaning, they have intentional understated of the measure and how much of an impact it has on individuals.

  A. the permanency of the measure and how much of an impact it has

  B. its permanency and its impact

  C. the measure's impact and permanency

  D. the impact of the measure and how permanent t is

  E. its permanency and the impact of it

  Correct Answer: B

• Question 104:

  The passage most strongly suggests that the author agrees with which of the following?

  A. There was not significantly less coverage by trees and other vegetation in Victoria after European immigrant settlement than before it.

  B. Average groundwater levels in Victoria probably increased after European immigrant settlement.

  C. Dahlhaus's examination of early cartographic evidence convinced him that European immigrant settlement was a significant factor contributing to soil salinity in Victoria.

  D. The impact of European immigrant settlement on the environment in Victoria does not explain soil salinity there.

  E. The main source of soil salinity in Victoria has been wind and rain transporting salt from the sea.

  Correct Answer: D

  Soil salinization--the process by which soil acquires excess soluble salt, adversely affecting pasture or crop growth--is regarded as Australia's most serious environmental problem. Cope, whose 1958 investigation is considered the earliest survey of salt-affected areas in Victoria, hypothesized that surplus rainwater mobilized soluble salt stored in the permeable layer of soil, causing it to accumulate above an impermeable layer and then discharge downslope or onto a valley floor. In the late 1970s, however, Jenkin identified saline water underground as the main and immediate (though not ultimate) source of the salt, and hypothesized that the spread of salinity resulted from a rise in that groundwater. He attributed the rise to a decrease in coverage by water-absorbing trees and other vegetation at some ill-defined point in Australia's post-settlement history. However, more-recent research suggests there was no rise in post- settlement groundwater levels. Furthermore, soil salinity probably antedated European settlement: early cartographic evidence indicates that some streams were saline when Europeans arrived. Dahlhaus suggests that salt accumulation resulted from marine incursions several million years ago, when parts of Victoria may have been submerged--as well as from transport of salt from the sea by wind and rain. Dahlhaus also notes that various minerals dissolved in groundwater by weathering may have produced salt.

• Question 105:

  Economist: In Nation X, the number of unsold homes on the market recently reached a twenty-year high. The last time the number of unsold homes was that high, a severe economic recession soon followed. Therefore, the nation's economy is almost certainly about to suffer another severe recession.

  The economist's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on which of the following grounds?

  A. It confuses a claim about the number of unsold homes on the market with a more general claim about an overall economic recession.

  B. It overlooks the possibility that even if one phenomenon causally contributes to another, the latter sometimes, but not always, causally contributes to the former.

  C. It overlooks the possibility that other severe economic recessions In Nation X may have occurred when there were not an unusually large number of unsold homes on the market.

  D. It fails to address adequately the possibility that one phenomenon may closery follow another by coincidence.

  E. It fails to address adequately the possibility that a severe economic recession may itself cause more homes to remain on the market unsold.

  Correct Answer: D

• Question 106:

  The author of the passage most clearly agrees with the claim that the ancestor of all Indo-European languages A. transmitted some of its vocabulary to a language ancestral to Finnish

  B. split into its daughter languages no more than 5,500 years ago

  C. probably spread from Anatolia to the steppes north of the Black Sea

  D. probably originated before chariots and wagons were invented

  E. had the same word for "bee" as some of its daughter languages have

  Correct Answer: A

  The following is based on an article published in 2012. Most linguists believe proto-Indo- European, the ancestor of all Indo-European languages, was the language of chariot-driving pastoralists who spread through Eurasia from steppes north of the Black Sea about 4,000 years ago. But a competing theory is that proto-Indo-European was spoken by farmers in Anatolia (Asia Minor) about 9,000 years ago, and spread from there along with agriculture. To evaluate these hypotheses, researchers statistically compared IndoEuropean languages' vocabularies. Languages with more similar vocabularies are probably more closely related, sharing more recent common ancestors. Combining the vocabulary statistics with the known dates when certain languages split, and with their known geographical ranges, a computer calculated the most likely relationships among all Indo-European languages and concluded that protoIndo- European probably originated in Anatolia 9,000 years ago. Disputing this conclusion, skeptics argue that most Indo-European languages are similar in their words pertaining to chariots and wagons, suggesting protoIndo- European split into daughter languages only after chariots and wagons were invented. No archaeological evidence indicates that chariots and wagons existed before 5,500 years ago. Furthermore, proto-Indo-European had words for "horse" and "bee" and lent many words to proto-Uralic, the mother language of Finnish and Hungarian. The steppes north of the Black Sea were far closer than Anatolia to areas where proto-Uralic was spoken, and had more abundant wild horses and bees.

• Question 107:

  In the High Middle Ages, Latin, though no one's native tongue, was the language of international scholarly communication in Europe. Petrus Alfonsi, a native Hebrew and Arabic speaker. was unquestionably the author of four twelfth-century scientific works. Some scholars also attribute to Aifonsi two later scientific texts, because of their similarity in content and doctrine to the earlier works. However, the Latin in the first four works is impeccable while that in the later texts is not furry competent. Therefore, these two could not have been composed by Alfonsi.

  Which of the following, 4 true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

  A. During the twelfth century, numerous Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts were translated into Latin.

  B. Few scholars subscribed to Alfonsl's doctrines during his lifetime.

  C. Historical records are consistent with Alfonsi having written at least six major scientific works.

  D. Alfonsi spent his adult years living In an exclusively Arabic-speaking community.

  E. The two later works noted in the passage above make explicit reference to the four earlier works attributed to Alfonsi.

  Correct Answer: A

• Question 108:

  In a study examining the neural pathway linking audtory perception to motor skills, brain scans of study participants who were tone-deaf--those unable to differentiate between or produce sounds of various pitches--revealed many fewer fibers on the arcuate fasciculus, the pathway connecting the frontal and temporal lobes, than there were In a control group of non-tone-deaf people. In 90 percent of the tone-deaf participants, researchers could not detect the superior branch of the arcuate fasciculus. The researchers concluded that they had found the anatomical cause of tone deafness.

  Which of the following would, if true, indicate a major flaw in the researchers' reasoning?

  A. Although 17 percent of the population self-identifies as tone-deaf, not all of them are clinically tone- deaf.

  B. An Inability to produce sounds that match a particular tone induces fibers of the arcuate fasciculus to atrophy and die.

  C. Many of the participants in the control group had perfect pitch, the ability to recognize and reproduce any given tone

  D. Fibers in the arcuate fasciculus of the tone-deaf participants exhibited more activity than did those of the control group.

  E. People who are tone-deaf perform similarly on tests of gross-motor skills to people who are not tone- deaf.

  Correct Answer: B

• Question 109:

  It can be inferred from the passage that Sorenson and Audia's argument differs in part from the economic explanations mentioned in the highlighted text in that Sorenson and Audia claim that

  A. lower failure rates in an industry are not necessarily a result of better performance

  B. geographic concentration of production is a result of higher founding rates

  C. access to scarce resources is less important for the success of a new organization than is proximity to consumers

  D. structurally equivalent organizations compete with one another for consumers In the same market

  E. certain geographical regions offer intrinsic advantages that can benefit a particular industry economically

  Correct Answer: B

  Organizations that produce similar goods tend to concentrate in the same geographic area (geographic concentration of production). Economic explanations of such industrial agglomeration explicitly emphasize better performance, and implicitly emphasize lower failure rates, as the key processes contributing to this geographic concentration. Sometimes Industries benefit economically from situating themselves in particular locations that offer intrinsic advantages such as access to scarce raw materials or proximity to consumers. In other cases, regardless of the particular location, the colocation of structurally equivalent organizations--those that operate in the same markets--may itself yield advantages such as common labor markets and knowledge spillovers. Sorenson and Audia point out that these explanations Ignore the fact that structurally equivalent organizations also compete with one another for vital resources, and colocation would be expected to increase such competition. Organizational ecology studies support this expectation by showing that organizations apparently compete more intensely within local population boundaries. Sorenson and Audia propose instead that what maintains geographic concentration is entrepreneurial opportunity, which leads to higher founding rates. Dense local concentrations of structurally equivalent organizations increase the pool of potential entrepreneurs in a region. Beginning entrepreneurs need exposure to existing organizations in the industry to acquire knowledge of the business, ties to scarce resources, and self-confidence. The existing geographic concentration of production constrains access to these resources, so that new founding's tend to reinforce geographic concentration.

• Question 110:

  

  

  A. Option A

  B. Option B

  C. Option C

  D. Option D

  E. Option E

  Correct Answer: E