The Alphabet

GRE Big Book Critical Reasoning Test 6

Jimmy Wang
04/01/2024

GRE Critical Reasoning

Directions

Critical Reasoning questions test the ability to understand, analyze, and evaluate arguments. Some of the abilities tested by specific questions include identifying the roles played by specific phrases or sentences in an argument, recognizing the point of an argument, recognizing assumptions on which an argument is based" drawing conclusions and forming hypotheses, identifying methods of argumentation, evaluating arguments and counter-arguments, and analyzing evidence.

Each of the Critical Reasoning questions is based on a short argument, a set of statements, or a plan of action. For each question, select the best answer of the choices given.

People often do not make decisions by using the basic economic principle of rationally weighing all possibilities and then making the choice that can be expected to maximize benefits and minimize harm. Routinely, people process information in ways that are irrational in this sense.

#1

Any of the following, if true, would provide evidence in support of the assertions above EXCEPT:

People tend to act on new information, independent of its perceived relative merit, rather than on information they already have.

People prefer a major risk taken voluntarily to a minor one that has been forced on them, even if they know that the voluntarily taken risk is statistically more dangerous.

People avoid situations in which they could become involved in accidents involving large numbers of people more than they do situa- tions where single-victim accidents are possible, even though they realize that an accident is more likely in the latter situations than in the former.

People tend to take up potentially damaging habits even though they have clear evidence that their own peers as well as experts disapprove of such behavior.

People usually give more weight to a physician’s opinion about the best treatment for a disease than they do to the opinion of a neighbor if they realize that the neighbor is not an expert in disease treatment.

One of the world’s most celebrated paintings, The Man with the Golden Helmet, long attributed to Rembrandt, is not a Rembrandt after all. So say several art experts, who base their conclusion on an analysis of stylistic features, especially details both of shading and of brushwork. In order to ascertain who really painted the well-known masterpiece, the experts have begun a series of sophisticated new tests, including one that involves the activation of neutrons. These tests yield patterns for any painter that are as distinctive as a good set of fingerprints.

#2

WhIch of the following is an assumption on which the conclusion of the art experts depends?

The painting known as The Man with the Golden Helmet is a copy of a Rembrandt original.

The original ascription of The Man with the Golden Helmet to Rembrandt was a deliberate fraud.

If even The Man with the Golden Helmet is of questionable attribution, then any supposedly authentic Rembrandt has now become suspect.

There are significant consistencies among authentic Rembrandts in certain matters of style.

The Man with the Golden Helmet was riot painted during Rembrandt’s lifetime.

A placebo is a chemically inert substance prescribed more for the mental relief of a patient than for its effect on the patient’s physical disorder. It is prescribed in the hope of instilling in the patient a positive attitude toward prospects for his or her recovery. In some cases, the placebo actually produces improvement in the patient’s condition. In discussing the use and effect of placebos, a well-known medical researcher recently paid physicians the somewhat offbeat compliment of saying that physicians were the ultimate placebo.

#3

By comparing a physician to a placebo, the researcher sought to imply that

it is difficult to determine what, if any, effect a physician’s behavior has on a patient’s condi- tion

many patients actually suffer from imagined illnesses that are best treated by placebos

the health of some patients can improve simply from their knowledge that they are under a physician’s care

physicians should always maintain and communicate an optimistic attitude toward their patients, regardless of the prognosis

physicians could prescribe less medication and achieve the same effect

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was established to protect workers from accidents and unsafe conditions on the job. There has actually been an increase in the number of job-related accidents under OSHA. This demonstrates the agency’s ineffectiveness.

#4

Which of the following, if true concerning the period during which the increase occurred, most seriously weakens the argument above?

OSHA has been assigned a greater number of kinds of workplace activities to monitor.

There has been an increase in the total number of people at work, and the ratio of work-related deaths and injuries to size of work force has fallen in OSHA-supervised occupations.

A number ofjob categories, excluded from the jurisdiction of OSHA in the legislation origi- nally establishing the agency, have continued to be outside OSHA’s jurisdiction.

The increase in job-related accidents has occurred mainly in a single job category, whereas the number of job-related accidents has remained approximately constant in other categories.

Regulations issued by OSHA have met with political criticism from elected officials and the mass media.

Being an only child has little to do with a child’s social development. A recent study that followed thirty only children and thirty-five first-born children to the age of three found that the two groups of children behaved very similarly to each other toward their peers, their parents, and other adults.

#5

Which of the following, if true, most weakens the conclusion drawn above?

The first-born children were, on the average, nearly three when their parents had second children~

Most of the researchers involved in the study were persons who had no brothers or sisters.

The “other adults” described in the study consisted mainly of members of the research team.

More time was spent observing the interactions of children with their mothers than with their fathers.

The groups being compared did not contain the same number of children.

Manufacturers of household appliances in the United States are introducing an array of computerized technologies in the work of many of their factories in an effort to regain a lead eroded by international competition. On the basis of changes that have already taken place, experts predict a golden age for the consumer of better-designed and better- built products.

#6

Which of the following, if true, best helps to explain the change in the growth pattern of the Union party mentioned above?

The percentage of voting-age citizens who change political party affiliation each year has remained constant, and the number of voting-age citizens has remained the same.

The economy has been prospering recently, and many of those who change party affiliation are upwardly mobile and prosperous.

In recent years those who were previously nonaffiliated have tended to join the Union party if they joined any party at all.

Many members of the Union party have abandoned all political party affiliation in recent years.

The percentage of voting-age citizens who are affiliated with any political party has increased over the last ten years.

Geographers and historians have traditionally held the view that Antarctica was first sighted around 1820, but some sixteenth-century European maps show a body that resembles the polar landmass, even though explorers of the period never saw it. Some scholars, therefore, argue that the continent must have been discovered and mapped by the ancients, whose maps are known to have served as models for the European cartographers.

#7

Which of the following, if true, is most damaging to the inference drawn by the scholars?

There are only a few sixteenth-century global I maps that show a continental landmass at the South Pole.

The question of who first sighted Antarctica in modern times is still much debated, and no one has been able to present conclusive evidence.

Most attributions of surprising accomplish- ments to ancient civilizations or even extraterrestrials are eventually discredited or rejected as preposterous.

Between 3,000 and 9,000 years ago, the world was warmer than it is now, and the polar landmass was presumably smaller.

Ancient philosophers believed that there had to be a large landmass at the South Pole to balance the northern continents and make the world symmetrical.