Admission Tests Admission Tests Certifications GMAT Questions & Answers

• Question 31:

  The decision-making model is unique in not only making prescriptions about proper leader behavkx while arriving at decisions but also gives prescriptions for the decision maker to follow.

  A. not only making prescriptions about proper leader behavior while arriving at decisions but also gives prescriptions

  B. that it not only makes prescriptions about proper leader behavior in making decisions but also gives prescriptions

  C. that it not only prescribes how leaders should behave in making decisions but prescribes things

  D. that it prescribes not only how leaders should behave when making decisions but also what guidelines

  E. prescribing not only proper leader behavior during decision making, but also guidelines

  Correct Answer: B

• Question 32:

  The passage Is primarily concerned with which of the following?

  A. Comparing a traditional theory concerning managerial work with a new theory

  B. Explaining a controversy concerning managerial work

  C. Recommending specific new approaches to managerial work

  D. Reporting recent changes in managerial work

  E. Anticipating future developments in managerial work

  Correct Answer: D

  Managerial work is undergoing enormous and rapid change. With little precedent to guide them, managers are coping with the fading away of hierarchy and the blurring of clear distinctions of title, task, department, even corporation. Traditional sources of power are being eroded as levels of complexity and interdependence increase. Competitive pressures from recent business downturns are forcing corporations to adopt flexible strategies and structures, including reductions In management staff and increased use of performance-based (rather than longevity-based) rewards. In a more profound change, in a growing number of companies horizontal ties between peers are replacing vertical ties as channels of activity and communication. Companies are asking departmental staff to play a more strategic role, with greater cross-departmental collaboration. Some organizations are forming strategic alliances with customers and outside suppliers that bring external relationships inside, where they can influence company policy. Fundamentally, the new managerial work involves new ways of obtaining and using power. Position, title, and authority are no longer adequate tools when managers have to work cooperatively with other departments and even other companies. The ability of managers to get things done depends more on the number of networks in which they are included than on their rank in a hierarchy. In the past, formal structures and the emphasis on rank were more limiting. For example, access to information and the ability to get informal backing were often confined to the few officially sanctioned contact points between departments or between the company and Its suppliers or customers. Today, official barriers between departments and between companies are disappearing while Informal networks grow in importance. The new corporation has many more channels for action, strategic pathways that ignore the chain of command. These strategic pathways also serve to diffuse power. As the number of ways to combine resources Increases, the ability to command diminishes. Alternative paths of communication and resource access erode the authority of those in the nominal chain of command. In other words, greater speed and flexibility undermine hierarchy. As more and more of the strategic action takes place in these informal networks, the Jobs that focus inward on particular departments decline In power.

• Question 33:

  

  A. Option A

  B. Option B

  C. Option C

  D. Option D

  E. Option E

  Correct Answer: E

• Question 34:

  Sizable amounts of ice on the moon could provide future moon dwellers with drinking water and, if they split the water into its atomic components, hydrogen for fuel and oxygen for air. For a decade, scientists have argued about whether there is Ice in the Shaddeton crater located at the moon's south pole. Radar signals reflected off the crater are consistent with one of two scenarios: either the crater contains ice or the crater has a highly rough surface. Many scientists believe that the Shackleton crater does contain ice because_________.

  Which of the following, if true, most logically completes the argument above?

  A. ice is known to exist on many planetary moons

  B. radar signals reflected off the moon's dry, rough-surfaced Schomberger crater are not significantly different from the signals reflected off the Shackleton crater

  C. mass spectrometry analysis indicates higher hydrogen atom concentrations in the Shackleton cratef than are typical of rough lunar surfaces

  D. the Shackleton crater is in permanent shadow and so its temperature is well below freezing

  E. the moon has a few very rough areas, where its surface has not been sandblasted to a very fine dust

  Correct Answer: D

• Question 35:

  We need not, however, asaibe careerist motivations to all movement participants, some may have them, but others may aim to amass prestige and influence simply because they fervently believe in the movement's intellectual merit.

  A. ascribe careerist motivations to all movement participants,

  B. always ascribe careerist motivations to every movement participant; while

  C. uniformly ascribe careerist motivations to movement participants who, since

  D. ascribe careerist motivations to all movement participants whenever

  E. uniformly ascribe careerist motivations to movement participants:

  Correct Answer: A

• Question 36:

  Which of the following does information in the passage most strongly suggest is true?

  A. People going to watch a film that is expected to evoke negative emotion are more likely to sit at the front of the theater than at the back.

  B. Left-handed people are more likely than others to prefer sitting on the left side of a movie theater to sitting on the right side.

  C. Some people gaing to watch a movie, whether comedy, drama, or other genre, prefer sitting on the left side of the theater to sitting on the right side.

  D. Students who sit on the left side of a classroom and direct their frontal gaze somewhat to the right receive more visual information from the left side than the right side of their visual field.

  E. Ambidextrous people are as likely to prefer sitting on the left side of a movie theater as on the right side.

  Correct Answer: C

  Despite overall physiological bilateral symmetry, many species exhibit lateralized biases, i.e., preferences for right- or left-oriented behavior. When approaching prey, for example, some predator species favor their right eye; some prey species respond more quickly when their left eye detects a predator. Similar behavioral asymmetries occur in humans. Most notable is right- and lefthandedness; less notable is the tendency to turn right when entering a room. Paul Farnsworth found that more successful students tended to choose seats near the front, a little to the right. He argued that external factors such as teacher location might have affected this lateral bias. But it is now known that processing differences between the two brain hemispheres can also contribute to behavioral asymmetries, George Karev found that when presented with a movie theater seating diagram, right-handed people were more likely than left-handed people to choose a seat on the right, facing front. But he hypothesized that, since the right hemisphere processes visuospatial and emotional information, the people who chose right- side seats did so because that would put the screen in their left visual field, optimizing information flow to the right hemisphere. Although the right hemisphere is thought to be dominant in processing emotion, some evidence suggests that the left hemisphere plays a role. The valence model proposes that the left and right hemispheres process positive and negative emotion respectively, while the approach-withdrawal model posits that the left hemisphere processes emotion expressed in approach behavior and the right hemisphere processes emotion expressed in withdrawal behavior. Victoria Harms and colleagues suggested that since a paper seating plan was used in the theater-seating studies by Karev and others, the exhibited preference might be due simply to handedness: people choose the same side of the paper as their favored hand. Consequently, the Harms research was designed to study choices in an actual movie theater. Also, hoping to distinguish between various explanations, they studied seating choices for comedies (presumed to contain Positive emotional content), dramas (presumed to contain negative emotional content), and documentaries (presumed to have balanced emotional content). They found significant--though not universal-- preference for seats on the right, facing front, regardless of movie genre and of handedness.

• Question 37:

  The use o* bets in the 1998 study was intended to deflect objections that would be based on which of the following Issues?

  A. The possibility of research subjects interpreting "probability" so as not to conform to the mathematical principles, and their interpretation of Xto include additional information

  B. The possibility of research subjects interpreting "probability" so as not to conform to the mathematical principles, and the lack of motivation of some of the subjects

  C. Failure of research subjects to recognize that adolescent smoking could decrease even when the cigarette tax remains the same

  D. The Interpretation of *by some study subjects to include additional Information, and their lack of concentration on the assigned tasks

  E. The fact that some of the research subjects did not commit the conjunction fallacy

  Correct Answer: E

  Mathematical principles of probability entail that for any future event, the probability that it will occur Is at least as great as the probability that both it and some other given event will occur. Consider, for example, the following statements that were shown to subjects in a 1998 study. X The percentage of adolescent smokers In Texas will decrease at least 15% from current levels by September 1, 1999. Y The cigarette tax in Texas will increase by $1.00 per pack in 1999. Z The cigarette tax in Texas will increase by $1.00 per pack in 1999, and the percentage of adolescent smokers in Texas will decrease at least 15% from current levels by September 1, 1999. Z("Kand X") could not have been more probable than X. Nevertheless, many of the subjects judged Zto be more probable than X. This mistaken form of reasoning, displayed with surprising frequency in various studies in addition to the 1998 study, is known as the "conjunction fallacy." A number of researchers have offered alternative explanations for the seeming manifestations of the mistake, thus arguing that the fallacy is less widely committed than the various studies would indicate. Some have claimed that research subjects can take "probability" in a sense that does not conform to the mathematical principles of probability. Detailed descriptions of some such conceptions of "probability" have been developed under the names of "confirmation" and "support." Other researchers would claim, correctly, that subjects shown Z(" Kand X") and ^simultaneously will sometimes think of Xas involving the negation of Y--as a claim that the percentage of adolescent smokers in Texas will decrease, but without the $1.00 increase in the cigarette tax. However, although the subjects in the 1998 study were to consider Xand Z simultaneously, the statements were presented in terms of bets rather than explicit requests for judgments of relative probability. Subjects were asked to choose between Zand X, with a chance of winning $50.00 if the chosen statement turned out to be true. Terms such as "most probable," "likely," etc., were thus avoided, and the interpretation of X\n conjunction with the negation of Kwas thereby eliminated. And with these alternative explanations eliminated, many of the subjects nonetheless bet on Zrather than

  X:

• Question 38:

  Even those residents who had not been born in the region, nor were their ancestors, had become fully integrated into the local community.

  A. region, nor were their ancestors, had

  B. region--neither had their ancestors--had

  C. region--and whose ancestors had not been either--had

  D. region, whose ancestors were not either, had

  E. region, which their ancestors had not, had

  Correct Answer: B

• Question 39:

  Motor-scooter dealers attribute a drastic decline in sales over the last few years to a new law requiring motor-scooter riders to wear helmets. Previously, helmets had been obligatory for motorcycle riders but not for motor-scooter riders--a difference that the dealers argue made scooters preferable for many customers. Safety advocates, however, dispute the dealers' explanation, pointing out that the law's introduction coincided with a large increase in the cost of mandatory insurance for both types of vehicle. In evaluating the safety advocates' and the dealers' explanations, it would be most helpful to know which of the following?

  A. Whether there were any motor-scooter riders who regularly wore helmets before the law required them to do so

  B. Whether the cost of mandatory insurance for other motor vehicles has increased at the same rate as the insurance cost for motor scooters and motorcycles

  C. How the accident rate for motor scooters compares to the accident rate for motorcycles

  D. How sales of imported motor scooters have changed compared with sales of domestically produced models

  E. How sales of motorcycles that are close in purchase price to motor scooters have changed over the period that scooter sales have declined

  Correct Answer: E

• Question 40:

  The primary purpose of the passage Is to

  A. describe some of the discoveries that have been made using a new technique

  B. provide evidence that a new technique will be able to resolve a longstanding controversy

  C. trace the development and implementation of a new technique

  D. explain how a new technique works and why it Is significant

  E. discuss questions that a new technique raises about older techniques

  Correct Answer: D

  Previously unknown extrasolar planets-planets outside our solar system-- probably await discovery In archival images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. A new technique allows astronomers to model the amount and distribution of scattered light produced by young stars suspected of spawning planets and remove that light from images of those stars. Once the glare of the parent stars' light is removed, planets may show up In Images already taken by Hubble's infrared cameras, since heat emitted by planets produces telltale wavelengths of infrared light. In 2008, astronomers using powerful Earth-based telescopes were able to detect three planets orbiting the star HR 8799 that were not previously detected by astronomers who examined infrared Hubble images of the star in 1998. David Lafrentere--a member of the team of astronomers who detected the planets in 2006 --then applied the new technique to those Hubble images and managed to uncover the outermost of the three planets. The others, tying closer to the star, still could not be distinguished against the background of the star's light. Lafrenifre's work has helped reaffirm the importance of maintaining long-term archives, and--because Hubble's infrared cameras record some wavelengths of light that cannot penetrate through the atmosphere to reach Earth's surface- revealed new information about the outermost of HR 8799's planets.