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GRE Big Book Critical Reasoning Test 42

Jimmy Wang
11/21/2024

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.

Despite the fact that the health-inspection procedures for catering establishments are more stringent than those for ordinary restaurants, more of the cases of food poisoning reported to the city health department were brought on by banquets served by catering services than were brought on by restaurant meals.

#1

Which of the following, if true, helps explain the apparent paradox in the statement above?

Many restaurants provide catering services for banquets in addition to serving individual meals.

A significantly larger number of people eat in restaurants than attend catered banquets in any given time period.

Catering establishments know how many people they expect to serve, and therefore are less likely than restaurants to have, and serve, leftover food, a major source of food poisoning.

The number of reported food-poisoning cases at catered banquets is unrelated to whether the meal is served on the caterer’s or the client’s premises.

People are unlikely to make a connection between a meal they have eaten and a subsequent illness unless the illness strikes a group who are in communication with one another.

Dear Editor: Jones’s new book has the potential to destroy reputations of persons who have held high governmental responsibility during national crises. However, readers should dismiss Jones’s criticisms. Jones’s antigovernment attitude is well known, and his criticisms will convince only those like himself, persons who have never had real responsibility and never will, and hence are not qualified to judge.

#2

The argument above includes which of the following questionable techniques?

It assumes that attacking the source of a claim is sufficient to disprove the claim.

It confuses cause and effect.

It appeals to a person of unreliable authority as a supporter of its position .

It employs the term “responsibility” in more than one sense.

It assumes that the majority of people share Jones’s attitude of opposition to government policies.

I. Neither Peter nor Sarah has any common sense.

II. Neither Peter nor Sarah is able to run the factory.

#3

Statement II must be true if both Statement I and which of the following statements are true?

If Sarah had any common sense, she and Peter would be able to run the factory.

To be able to run a factory, a person must have common sense.

Neither Peter nor Sarah has any experience in running factories.

Even a person who lacks common sense would be able to run a factory if he or she had taken courses in factory management.

Peter and Sarah, working with someone who has good common sense, would be able to run the factory.

If we employ a broad definition of what is urban-that is, one that includes suburbs- about 33,000 square miles of land in the United States were converted from rural to urban uses in the 1960’s and 1970·s. From 1960 to 1980 the area of urban settlement increased by 84 percent while the urban population increased by 33 percent.

#4

If all of the statements above are true, which of the following must also be true?

The rate of growth of the popUlation in urban areas in the United States increased between 1960 and 1980.

Areas in the United States that were definitely urban before 1960 gained popula- tion at the expense of rural and formerly rural areas between 1960 and 1980.

8y 1980 the fraction of the United States population living in urban settlements built after 1960 exceeded the fraction of the population living in urban settlements built before 1960.

The density of the urban population in the United States decreased between 1960 and 1980.

The population of rural areas decreased between 1960 and 1980.

Praising a historian for factual accuracy in describing events is like praising an architect for using well-seasoned timber or properly mixed concrete in a building.

#5

The author of this statement is arguing that

a historian has an obligation to be factually accurate, but accuracy is not the historian’s most notable accomplishment

nonhistorians can appreciate well-written historical accounts, but they cannot judge the accuracy of a historian’s version of events

a good historian must have a thorough knowledge of auxiliary sciences that help establish facts about events

the credibility of a historian’s argument depends on the amount of information the historian has available

history is analogous to architecture in that both disciplines build on foundations laid by other professions

Masterpieces of literature are “intertextual”; that is, they tend to be written in response not to reality but to other works of literature. To the extent that a writing is intertextual, it becomes clouded as a mirror of social reality.

#6

The statements above provide the most support for which of the following conclusions?

Literary masterpieces of the past arc suspect as sources of-information about the social reality of the past.

A work of literature is not intertextual if it is written in response to a writing that accurately mirrors social reality.

A writing that is not intertextual can have no significant relationship to any other writings.

To the extent that a writing fails to mirror social reality, the writing is intertextual.

The author who wishes to write a master- piece should avoid being influenced by other works of literature.

# GRE Critical Reasoning

GRE Critical Reasoning

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