Summary
The author concludes that unemployment will soon decrease. This is based on the following:
If total gov. spending significantly increases next year, unemployment will decrease.
If total gov. spending significantly decreases next year, unemployment will decrease.
If total gov. spending significantly increases next year, unemployment will decrease.
If total gov. spending significantly decreases next year, unemployment will decrease.
Missing Connection
We have two triggers that can prove unemployment will decrease — gov. spending significantly increases or it significantly decreases next year. But do we know that either of those will actually occur? No. So to make the argument valid, we want to know that next year, gov. spending will significantly increase or it will significantly decrease.
A
Either total government spending will significantly decrease next year or else total government spending will significantly increase next year.
(A) establishes that one of the two triggers for a decrease in unemployment will occur. So it must be true that unemployment will decrease next year.
B
Government officials are currently implementing policies that are intended to reduce unemployment.
(B) doesn’t establish that one of the two triggers for a decrease in unemployment will occur.
C
If there is a significantly increased demand for workers, then there will be a significant decrease in unemployment.
Although (C) tells us that IF there’s a significant increase in demand for workers, there will be a significant decrease in unemployment, we don’t have a premise establishing that there will be a significant increase in demand for workers.
D
A significant increase in total government spending will slow the economy in the long run.
(D) doesn’t establish that one of the two triggers for a decrease in unemployment will occur.
E
If the economy is not stimulated and businesses do not retain more of their earnings, then unemployment will not decrease.
(E) doesn’t establish that one of the two triggers for a decrease in unemployment will occur. (E) is designed to reach a conclusion that unemployment will NOT decrease. But we’re trying to show that unemployment WILL decrease.
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Patients in Woodville’s semiprivate-rooms-only hospital experience the same infection rates and lengths of stay as patients at nearby hospitals where most of the rooms are private, even though hospital patients tend to have lower infection rates and require shorter hospital stays when they are housed in private rooms.
Objective
The right answer will describe some factor that does one or more of the following: improves infection rates and lengths of stay at Woodville, worsens these metrics at the nearby hospitals with mostly private rooms, or shows why Woodville’s semiprivate rooms do not impact the metrics in question the way other hospitals’ semiprivate rooms do. This factor will serve to counteract the effects of the different room privacies to yield the same infection rates and lengths of stay across the hospitals.
A
Many of the doctors who routinely treat patients in Woodville’s hospital also routinely treat patients in one or more of the nearby hospitals.
This answer does the opposite of what we need. We might’ve been able to explain the nearly identical infection rates and stay lengths by saying that Woodville has superior doctors, but this answer takes away that possibility by saying that many of the doctors are the same.
B
Most of the nearby hospitals were built within the last 10 years, whereas Woodville’s hospital was built about 50 years ago.
This might explain why Woodville’s room layout is different from those of the nearby hospitals, but it doesn’t help explain why the lengths of stay and rates of infection at Woodville are largely the same.
C
Infection is more likely to be spread where people come into close contact with one another than where they do not.
This might help explain why infection rates tend to be worse among patients in semiprivate rooms, but it doesn’t help explain why that effect doesn’t make Woodville’s infection rates worse than those at nearby hospitals.
D
Woodville’s hospital has a policy of housing one patient per room in semiprivate rooms whenever possible.
This offers an explanation of why Woodville has the same infection rates and stay lengths as nearby hospitals despite the difference in its floorplan: even though Woodville has only semiprivate rooms, they use them as though they were private whenever possible.
E
Woodville’s hospital is located in its central business district, whereas most of the nearby hospitals are located outside their municipalities’ business districts.
This doesn’t offer anything to counteract the impact we would expect semiprivate rooms to have on infection rates and stay lengths at Woodville in comparison to nearby hospitals.
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Why is the chameleon’s tongue extension speed largely unaffected by temperature drops while the weakened muscle power resulting from such drops dramatically slows the chameleon’s tongue retraction speed?
Objective
The right answer will describe a key difference between chameleon tongue retraction and chameleon tongue extension. That difference must explain why tongue retraction speeds decrease dramatically in lower temperatures while tongue extension speeds remain largely unchanged. The answer will likely explain why tongue extension is less impacted than retraction by the muscle weakening chameleons experience in lower temperatures.
A
Most cold-blooded animals are much more active in warmer weather than in cooler weather.
This doesn’t help us. We need information about a difference between chameleon tongue extension and chameleon tongue retraction. It doesn’t matter how active most cold-blooded animals are in different weather.
B
Many cold-blooded animals, including the veiled chameleon, have tongues that can extend quite a distance.
This doesn’t help us. We need information about a difference between chameleon tongue extension and chameleon tongue retraction. The distance the tongues extend doesn’t matter.
C
Veiled chameleons are found in a wide range of habitats, including ones with wide variations in temperature and ones with moderate climates.
This doesn’t help us. It doesn’t matter which climates chameleons live in; we only care about a difference that emerges in low temperatures, whether or not chameleons are often found in various habitats.
D
In the veiled chameleon, tongue retraction is powered by muscles, whereas tongue extension is driven by energy stored in a rubber band-like sheath.
This explains why chameleon tongue extension is considerably less impacted than tongue retraction by temperature drops. The muscle weakening chameleons experience in cold temperatures affects tongue retraction but not extension, because extension is not powered by muscles.
E
Compared with the muscles in the tongues of most cold-blooded animals, the retraction muscles in the veiled chameleon’s tongue are considerably stronger.
This doesn’t help us. We need information about a difference between chameleon tongue extension and chameleon tongue retraction, not a difference between the chameleon’s tongue muscles and other cold-blooded animals’ tongue muscles.
Summary
Some advertisers offer free home computers to certain consumers. Ads play continuously on these screens. Information about consumers’ browsing patterns is sent to advertisers, allowing them to transmit information that fits the consumers’ interests. Advertisers can afford to offer these free computers because of the increased sales generated by precise targeting of ads.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Many consumers who use the free computers purchase products advertised to them on their computers.
A
At least some consumers who use a computer offered free of charge by advertisers for browsing the Internet spend more money on purchases from those advertisers than they would if they did not use such a computer to browse the Internet.
This is strongly supported because we know that the ads are tailored to those consumers and we know that the computers generate additional revenue from sales that offsets the cost of the computer.
B
No advertisers could offer promotions that give away computers free of charge if consumers never used those computers to browse the Internet.
This is unsupported because there may be other schemes advertisers could use to figure out consumers’ interests outside of internet browsing patterns.
C
There are at least some consumers who browse the Internet using computers offered free of charge by the advertisers and who, if they did not use those computers to browse the Internet, would spend little if any money on purchases from those advertisers.
This is unsupported because it could be true that some of the consumers would have spent a lot of money on advertised products whether or not they had the free computers.
D
The advertisers would not be able to offer the computers absolutely free of charge if advertisements that accurately reflected the interests of the computers’ users did not play continuously across the computers’ screens whenever they were in use.
This is unsupported because it could be true that the advertisers would be able to offer the computers free of charge even if the ads played most of the time, but not continuously, across the screens when in use.
E
Consumers who use a computer offered free of charge by the advertisers can sometimes choose to abstain from having information about their browsing patterns sent to the advertisers.
This is anti-supported because is implied that the reason the computers are free is because they serve as a way for advertisers to collect information from browsing habits to send tailored ads to consumers.
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The zoologist hypothesizes that prehistoric European cave bears were not exclusively herbivores. This is supported by observations about bears’ heavy nitrogen levels, which are higher in meat-eating animals. Bone samples from cave bears contained heavy nitrogen levels as high as those in blood samples from modern, meat-eating bears.
Notable Assumptions
The zoologist assumes that heavy nitrogen levels in animals’ bones and blood are similar. The zoologist also assumes that heavy nitrogen levels did not change over time in the prehistoric bear samples, and that heavy nitrogen levels in the ecosystem back then were comparable to current levels.
A
Plants can also absorb heavy nitrogen from a variety of sources other than rainwater.
This is irrelevant. The argument has already established that plants absorb heavy nitrogen, so the exact source of the heavy nitrogen doesn’t matter.
B
The rate at which heavy nitrogen accumulated in the blood of Ice Age herbivores can be inferred from samples of their bones.
This is irrelevant, since the argument doesn’t make claims based on the rate of accumulation of heavy nitrogen in tissue, only the concentration of heavy nitrogen.
C
The same number of samples was taken from present-day bears as was taken from Ice Age cave bears.
This is irrelevant, because the exact number of samples doesn’t really make a difference. Either there were enough samples to be representative or there weren’t—either way, it would be equally possible to have the same number of samples.
D
Bone samples from present-day bears fed meat-enriched diets exhibit the same levels of heavy nitrogen as do their blood samples.
This strengthens by providing a closer comparison between cave bears and modern bears. If modern bears’ heavy nitrogen levels are identical between blood and bone, it’s more reasonable to draw conclusions by comparing cave bears’ bones and modern bears’ blood.
E
The level of heavy nitrogen in the bones of any bear fed a meat-enriched diet is the same as that in the bones of any other meat-eating bear.
This is irrelevant, since we can already be confident that the heavy nitrogen level in the modern bear samples is representative of a diet that includes meat.