Questions 12-13 are based on the following.
Record companies defend their substitution of laser-read compact discs (CD’s) for the much less expensive traditional long-playing vinyl records in their catalogs by claiming that the audio market is ruled by consumer demand for ever-improved sound reproduction rather than by record manufacturers’ profit-motivated marketing decisions. But this claim cannot be true, because if it were true, then digital audiotape, which produces even better sound than CD’s, would be commercially available from these same record companies, but it is not.
12. Which of the following, if true, best explains how the record companies’ claim about the nature of the audio reproduction market could be true and digital audiotape nevertheless be unavailable for the commercial market?
(A) Most consumers prefer audiotape to long-playing records or CD’s because of the tape’s durability and compactness.
(B) Prototypes of digital audiotape have been used to make master tapes of some performances in recording studios.
(C) The manufacturing technology that underlies the commercial production of CD’s requires equipment very similar to that needed for
(D) Record companies have not yet solved several quality-control problems that have beset attempts to produce digital audiotape in commercial quantities.
(E) CD’s are more expensive than long-playing vinyl records by about the same ratio as digital audiotape cassettes would be more expensive than conventional cassettes.
13. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument against the record companies’ claim?
(A) When CD’s were first introduced in the audio-reproduction market, prices were high and selection was poor.
(B) Record companies are reluctant to attempt commercial production of digital audiotape until profits from the sales of CD’s have enabled them to recover their investments in compact-disc manufacturing technology.
(C) Some CD’s have been so much in demand that consumers have experienced long delays in obtaining copies.
(D) Because CD’s work according to principles very different from those that govern conventional recordings, commercial production of CD’s requires new kinds of manufacturing technology.
(E) Any valid comparison of CD audio reproductions to digital audiotape reproductions must be based on identical performances played back on the highest quality disc or tape player.
14. The president of a consulting firm analyzed the decisions made about marketing by her clients and concluded that the decisions were correct only about half of the time.
The conclusion above depends on the presupposition that
(A) companies can be successful even when about half of the decisions they make about marketing prove to be wrong
(B) companies hiring her consulting firm make no more incorrect marketing decisions than do companies in general
(C) executives consistently making correct marketing decisions rarely enlist the aid of a consulting firm
(D) marketing decision are just as likely to be correct as they are to be incorrect
(E) it is possible to classify a marketing decision properly as being either right or wrong
15. It is true that unionized women earn, on average, more than a third more than nonunionized women do. But the unionized women work in industries where wages happen to be high, their nonunionized counterparts in these industries earn about as much as they do. Therefore unionization does not raise women’s wages.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?
(A) Besides wage increases, unions bargain for benefits such as medical insurance and workplace safety.
(B) The most highly paid women are in executive positions, which are not unionized.
(C) Wages in many industries vary from one part of the country to another, regardless of whether workers are unionized or not.
(D) Nonunionized women in an industry often receive income increases as a result of increases won by unions representing women who work for other employers in the same industry.
(E) The unionization of women who work for one employer in a given industry frequently prompts the unionization of women who work for other employers in the same industry.
16. A violin constructed to have improved sound would sound different from the best-sounding existing violins.To professional violinists, a violin that sounds different from the best-sounding existing violins sounds less like a violin and therefore worse than the best-sounding existing violins.Professional violinists are the only accepted judges of the sound quality of violins.
Would be the best supported by those statements?
(A) Only amateur violinists should be asked to judge the sound quality of newly constructed violins.
(B) Professional violinists supervise the construction of violins.
(C) The best-sounding existing violins have been in existence fro several centuries.
(D) It is currently impossible to construct a violin that the only accepted judges will evaluate as having improved sound
(E) It is possible to construct a violin that sounds better than the best-sounding existing violins to everyone but professional violinists.
17. The fact that several of the largest senior citizens’ organizations are constituted almost exclusively of middle-class elderly people has led critics to question the seriousness of those organizations’ commitment to speaking out on behalf of the needs of economically disadvantaged elderly people.
Which of the following generalizations, if true, would help to substantiate the criticism implicit in the statement above?
(A) The ideology of an organization tends reflect the traditional political climate of its locale.
(B) The needs of disadvantaged elderly people differ in some ways from those of other disadvantaged groups within contemporary society.
(C) Organized groups are better able to publicize their problems and seek redress than individuals acting alone.
(D) Middle-class elderly people are more likely to join organizations than are economically disadvantaged elderly people
(E) People usually join organizations whose purpose is to further the economic, political, or social interests of their members.
18. Corporate Officer: Last year was an unusually poor one for our chemical division, which has traditionally contributed about 60 percent of the corporation’s profits. It is therefore encouraging that there is the following evidence that the pharmaceutical division is growing stronger: it contributed 45 percent of the corporation’s profits, up from 20 percent the previous year.
On the basis of the facts stated, which of the following is the best critique of the evidence presented above?
(A) The increase in the pharmaceutical division’s contribution to corporation profits could have resulted largely from the introduction of single, important new product.
(B) In multidivisional corporations that have pharmaceutical divisions, over half of the corporation’s profits usually come from the pharmaceuticals.
(C) The percentage of the corporation’s profits attributable to the pharmaceutical division could have increased even if that division’s performance had not improved.
(D) The information cited does not make it possible to determine whether the 20 percent share of profits cited was itself an improvement over the year before.
(E) The information cited does not make it possible to compare the performance of the chemical and pharmaceutical divisions in of the percent of total profits attributable to each.
19. Identical twins tend to have similar personalities; if environment outweighs heredity in personality development, twins raised together should presumably have more similar personalities than those raised apart. A recent study of identical twins in both situations measured 11 key traits through a questionnaire, and concluded that 7 of the 11 are primarily products of heredity.
Which of the following, if established, would cast the most doubt on the study’s results?
(A) Fewer than half of the pairs of twins studied were raised separately.
(B) The ages of all of the twins studied fell within a 10-year range.
(C) Some of the traits that the study attributed to heredity developed in the separately raised twins because those pairs all grew up in similar families.
(D) Although over half the traits measured were determined to be linked to heredity, the nature of those traits varied widely
(E) The 11 traits that were measured constitute a representative sample of larger, generally accepted pool of key personality traits.
20. When people predict that certain result will not take place unless a certain action is taken, they believe that they have learned that the prediction is correct when the action is taken and the result occurs. On reflection, however, it often becomes clear that the result admits of more than one interpretation.
Which of the following, if true, best supports the claims above?
(A) Judging the success of an action requires specifying the goal of the action.
(B) Judging which action to take after a prediction is made requires knowing about other actions that have been successful in similar past situations.
(C) Learning whether a certain predictive strategy is good requires knowing the result using that strategy through several trials.
(D) Distinguishing a correct prediction and effective action from an incorrect prediction and ineffective action is often impossible.
(E) Making a successful prediction requires knowing the facts about the context of that prediction.
参考答案:
1. A
2. B
3. E
4. B
5. A
6. B
7. E
8. C
9. B
10. C
11. C
12. D
13. B
14. E
15. D
16. D
17. E
18. C
19. C
20. D
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