Pharmaceutical Developer: Until recently certain bacteria were considered too dangerous for use in vaccines. However, without a particular gene, these bacteria are harmless, and we can now remove the gene from these bacteria. Therefore, vaccines containing these bacteria can now be used safely. Scientist: Actually, the safety of such vaccines remains doubtful. Genes often migrate from one strain of bacteria to another, and other strains of bacteria in the human body contain the harmful gene.
The scientist’s response does which of the following?
- Indicates a possibility that shows that the conclusion drawn by the pharmaceutical developer does not follow from the evidence cited in its support
- Argues that all of the evidence that the pharmaceutical developer cites actually undermines the pharmaceutical developer’s own conclusion
- Challenges the truth of a piece of evidence cited in support of the pharmaceutical developer’s conclusion
- Offers a hypothesis that, if true, would provide an alternative explanation of the facts cited by the pharmaceutical developer
- Points out a further consequence of the pharmaceutical developer’s conclusion that follows directly from that conclusion
American and British critics who wrote enthusiastic reviews of west African writer Amos Tutuola’s 1952 book The Palm-Wine Drinkard typically dwelt less on his rhetorical skills and more on the text as an exemplar of naïve art. While these metropolitan critics were enchanted by the book, the initial literary reception in west Africa was by contrast highly critical. Concerned to avoid stereotyping,critics there objected to what they saw as very poor writing and expressed dismay at the uncritical promotion of the book. Many protested against what they saw as a metropolitan celebration of exoticism. For example, Adeagbo Akinjogbin attributed the novel’s success in the West to ignorance and a desire to believe “all sorts of fantastic tales about Africa.”
The passage suggests that the metropolitan critics who praised Tutuola’s book would most likely agree with which of the following claims about literature?
- Works that lack apparent sophistication might nevertheless have artistic value.
- Poor writing is never acceptable in a literary work, even one presented as naïve art.
- One can only fully appreciate a work of literature that is produced within a culture that one understands thoroughly.
- Nonliterary agendas often hamper the production of great literature.
- The value of a given literary work is mostly determined by the rhetorical skills of the author.
To ensure the quality of Carverville’s municipal water supply, the city government proposes building a filtration plant that will purify water drawn from the city’s reservoir. Yet after leaving the filtration plant and before reaching consumers, the water would still have to pass through old, deteriorating pipes that contain numerous contaminants that leach into the water. For this reason, it is unlikely that _______________.
Which of the following most logically completes the argument?
- all of the contaminants present in the water in Carverville’s reservoir could be removed by the proposed filtration plant
- there would be any improvement at all in the quality of Carverville’s water if the proposed filtration plant were built
- a filtration plant would eliminate the need for water filtration systems in the homes and offices of people who want water that is free of contaminants
- the level of contaminants in the water the Carverville residents drink could be reduced by replacing the city’s old,deteriorating water pipes
- the contaminants in Carverville’s old,deteriorating water pipes will ultimately prove harmful to the health of the people who habitually drink water that has passed through these pipes
In the late 1920s, the noted writer Lu Xun, who was also the primary figure behind the modern Chinese woodcut movement, began to introduce modern Western woodcuts into China. Lu Xun believed that Western artists’ emphasis on linearity and sharp black-and-white contrasts gave their art a distinctly serious quality, very different from the largely decorative nature of the traditional, richly colored Chinese woodcut. But he also believed that the most important ingredient in the Western woodcut was its close link to the broader society, an element missing in the Chinese woodcut tradition. It is true that Lu Xun was deeply impressed by the Western artists” techniques, which enabled them to evoke human emotions through gestures and facial expressions, but his decision to introduce their works was prompted more by his admiration of the works’ role in the struggle for social and political justice than by his interest in technique and craftsmanship. Lu Xun realized that woodcuts could do more than evoke emotions; they could be used as an educational tool to reshape public consciousness.
According to the passage, the traditional Chinese woodcut and the modern Western woodcut differed in which of the following ways?
- Western woodcuts had undergone radical changes in style.
- Western woodcuts tended to be more decorative in nature.
- Chinese woodcuts put greater emphasis on sharp visual contrasts.
- Chinese woodcuts were more concerned with the depiction of people and human emotions.
- Chinese woodcuts depended more on the use of rich coloration
In seventeenth-century Venice, the invention of the opera house as a public institution altered the relationship of the audience to the operatic performance on the stage and to each other. The stage performance was now separated from the audience both by the proscenium arch, which framed the action, and by the orchestra. The occupants of the boxes faced one another across the auditorium as well as the stage. Seeing and being seen was as much a function of the opera house as seeing and hearing what took place on the stage. American visitors to ltaly were routinely shocked at the casual ways of the boxholders and at the little attention they seemed to pay to the opera. There was incessant talk in the boxes, banging of doors, a restless to-and-fro. Public display was only half the story. The public nature of Venice’ s social life was balanced by a passion for disguise. Much of its political activity was conducted in secrecy. Masks were usually worn during carnival, attracting the crowned heads of Europe , who could play there incognito. The Venetian opera box was the equivalent of the mask. With its door shut, with shutters pulled across the front, the box became a place of privacy, an association that still exists in our time.
For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
According to the passage, the boxes of public opera houses served to
- create privacy for their occupants
- frame the opera’s action for the audience
- advertise the presence of their occupants
The importance of the relatively docile eland (antelope) in the diet of Middle Stone Age (MSA) people contrasted with the increased importance of aggressive wild pigs to Late Stone Age (LSA) people has been interpreted as an indication that MSA hunters were less proficient than LSA hunters. This has been used to support the view that neurological changes dramatically increased the behavioral sophistication of anatomically modern humans. However, alternative hypotheses have not been sufficiently examined to warrant this interpretation. The possibility that economic motives drove prey selection must first be excluded. Since eland are very large but less dangerous to hunt than wild pigs, it is likely that they would be a favored prey animal whether or not hunting strategies were sophisticated enough to tackle more aggressive prey.
The primary purpose of the passage is to
- resolve a debate about the advantages and disadvantages of certain Stone Age prey
- question a position on apparent changes in Stone Age hunting patterns
- critique the work of various researchers of Stone Age hunters
- suggest a reason that Late Stone Age hunters were more proficient than their predecessors
- provide evidence of increased behavioral complexity in Stone Age hunters over time
The large amount of methane in the atmosphere of Saturn’s giant moon Titan puzzles astronomers. Because methane is converted into heavier hydrocarbons by the Sun’s ultraviolet light, all the methane in Titan’s atmosphere should, at the present conversion rate, have disappeared in a few million years, long ago in Titan’s 4.5 billion years of existence. Something must be continuously feeding methane into Titan’s atmosphere. One possibility is that the methane comes from volcanic eruptions, but unless the supply rate were somehow precisely calibrated at a moderate level, either the methane would have run out by now or excess methane would have started to accumulate as a liquid ocean on the Surface. However, data indicate that the atmosphere just above the surface is not humid, as would be expected above a pure methane ocean. A possible explanation was suggested by Lunine: when sunlight breaks down methane, the main product is ethane. Lunine noted that at Titan’s surface temperature, ethane is also a liquid. A liquid mixture of methane and ethane would produce low Humidity. Such an ocean would slowly become richer in ethane while keeping the atmosphere supplied with methane.
According to the passage,a mixture of liquid ethane and liquid methane on Titan could account for which of the following?
- Differences in the humidity at different levels of Titan’s
- An atmospheric humidity just above Titan’s surface that
- The rate at which liquid methane accumulates on Titan’s
- The rate at which methane in Titan’s atmosphere is converted into heavier hydrocarbons
- The retention of a large amount of methane in Titan’s
The source of vitamin C in the traditional Inuit diet was long a mystery. Most animals can synthesize vitamin C in their livers, but humans are among the exceptions. If humans do not ingest enough vitamin C the result is scurvy, a potentially fatal connective-tissue disease. Most Americans today get ample supplies from orange juice, citrus fruits, and fresh vegetables. But getting enough vitamin C from a ship’s provisions was especially tricky for explorers voyaging to the Inuit’ s native polar regions, and scurvy plagued European and United States expeditions there even in the twentieth century. However, Arctic peoples were free of the disease, even in the long winter, when they subsisted entirely on meat and fish they caught, often eaten raw.
For the following question, consider each of the choices separately and select all that apply.
The passage suggests which of the following about humans’ need for vitamin C?
- Humans can rely on vitamin C stored in the body for as
- Humans need vitamin C to maintain the health of connective tissue in the body.
- The only way to meet the need for vitamin C is to consume fruit, fruit juices, and vegetables.
When aspirin relieves pain, it does so partly by blocking the body’s output of prostaglandins. chemicals that can produce inflammation and pain in the joints. Unfortunately, prostaglandins also produce a coating that protects the stomach from stomach acid, so taking aspirin can cause stomach upset. A recently developed medication promises to relieve pain without blocking prostaglandin production. Therefore, if this promise is fulfilled, the new medication will relieve pain without causing stomach upset.
The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on which of the following grounds?
- It relies on using a crucial term in two different senses.
- It relies on vague suppositions about future developments in order to gloss over a current difficulty.
- The fact that a certain effect can be produced in one way is taken to mean that the effect cannot be produced in any other way.
- The fact that a substance is known to produce a certain effect some of the time is taken to mean that the substance produces the effect all of the time.
- A substance that is said to have both positive and negative effects is treated as if it had only a negative effect.
Stress is a contributing factor in many illnesses, and for many people much of the stress in their lives is job-Related. Purposeful leisure-time activities, as distinct from leisure time spent idly, are good ways of taking one’ s mind off one’s job. Clearly, therefore, people who are under much job-related stress can get some measure of protection from stress-induced illness if they engage in purposeful leisure-time activities.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument?
- For people who experience job-related stress, purposeful leisure-time activities are not generally a source of stress.
- Generally, the people who experience the greatest job-related stress are those who have the least amount of leisure time.
- Many people who are under great stress on the job have no particular desire to engage in purposeful leisure-time activities.
- Medical treatments for people who have fallen ill do not usually include efforts to remove the stress that might have contributed to the illness.
- Some inherently stressful jobs are so structured that the people holding those jobs are guaranteed adequate leisure time at reasonable intervals.