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GRE Big Book Critical Reasoning Test 7

Jimmy Wang
04/07/2024

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.

A diet that contains polyunsaturated fats and is low in saturated fats reduces the risk of heart disease. Fish are an excellent source of omega-3, a polyunsaturated fat they obtain by eating the green plant cells of plankton. But cows and other ruminants obtain omega-3 polyunsaturates when they eat grass. Therefore, a diet rich in beef and a diet rich in fish should be equally effective in reducing the risk of heart disease.

#1

Which of the following, if true, would weaken the conclusion above?

Cows and other ruminants convert most of the omega-3 polyunsaturates they consume into saturated fats.

The diet of beef cattle can be monitored far more accurately than can the diet of fish.

Consuming polyunsaturates reduces the amount of cholesterol produced by the liver and reduces the chance of blockage in coronary blood vessels.

Medical researchers are expected soon to make a synthetic form of omega-3 that can be injected into beef.

Studies have shown that people who eat fish only once a week have a lower risk of heart disease than do people who never eat fish.

The widespread development of industrial robots is contributing to unemployment; therefore, “intelligent” machines are dangerous.

#2

The argument above is most like which of the following?

Whales are in danger of becoming extinct; therefore, we should not trade with countries that allow whales to be hunted.

Eating bacon is harmful to health; therefore, fatty foods are unsafe.

Some judges are dishonest because they take bribes.

Mussolini was an evil man; therefore, he became a fascist.

Birds are dangerous because they all spread disease.

New Jersey has one of the lowest motor vehicle fatality rates in the country, and it is one of the few states that require extensive annual automobile safety inspections. Therefore, all states should adopt similar safety inspection procedures.

#3

The argument above is based on which of the following assumptions?

Most states are skeptical that annual automobile safety inspections can reduce fatality rates.

Drivers in New Jersey are more safety conscious than are drivers in other parts of the country.

Annual automobile safety inspections contribute significantly to holding down New Jersey’s fatality rate.

A smaller number of people die on the roads in New Jersey than in most other states.

Most states tend to impose few rules and regulations on the automobile drivers operating within those states.

A population study based on a “microdata sample;’ a sample just large enough to allow reasonably accurate projections, found that in 1984 there had been a dramatic reversal of a twenty-year tendency toward migration of United States residents older than sixty to small towns and rural regions, both within and across state boundaries. This finding turns out to have been in error. The problem was that people who had moved to the United States from abroad were accidentally counted as part of interstate migration that year.

#4

Which of the following can be inferred from the passage above?

People over the age of sixty who in 1984 came to the United States from abroad did not settle predominantly in small towns and rural regions.

The microdata sample for 1984 that was used in the demographic study cited was too small to allow any meaningful projections.

The twenty-year trend mentioned in the passage was due chiefly to moves over relatively short distances, mostly within the same state.

In 1984 fewer United States residents over the age of sixty changed residence than in any of the twenty years prior to 1984.

In 1984 the majority of people coming to the United States from abroad were over the age of sixty.

The average age and racing experience of the drivers at the Indianapolis 500 automobile race increased each year between 1965 and 1980. The reason for the increase is that high-speed racing drivers were living longer than their predecessors. Race-car safety features that reduced the severity of crashes of the kind that formerly took drivers’ lives were primarily responsible for the increase in the average age of the Indianapolis 500 competitors.

#5

Which of the following, if true, would be most likely to be part of the evidence used to show that safety features on the cars that protected drivers in major crashes were responsible for the increase in the average age of drivers at the Indianapolis race?

The average age of drivers attempting to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 decreased slightly between 1965 and 1980.

Younger drivers at high-speed racetracks were involved in major accidents at a slightly higher rate than were older drivers between 1965 and 1980.

Other safety features, involving the condition of the racetrack and the unifonns worn by the drivers while driving, were adopted at Indianapolis between 1965 and 1980.

Accidents on highways in the United States occurred at about the same frequency in the years after 1965 as in the years before 1965.

Major accidents on high-speed racetracks occurred at about the same frequency in the years after 1965 as in the years before 1965.

John Cleland, best known for his novel Fanny Hill, is becoming the Vivaldi of eighteenth-century literature in that his cult is promoted by people who do not much care for the period as a whole and who cheerfully ignore the work of its greatest masters.

#6

It can be inferred that the author of the passage above believes which of the following?

Few people know much about the period in which Cleland wrote.

The cult of Vivaldi has developed more recently than that of Cleland.

Vivaldi was not one of the greatest masters of his time.

Most eighteenth-century novels deserve more attention than Fanny Hill.

Cleland was more esteemed as a writer in his own time than he is in ours.

Bats emit sounds and generally use the echoes of these sounds highly efficiently to detect; locate, and catch their prey. However, it is claimed that the characteristic efficiency of this process is reduced by moths able to hear the sounds emitted by insect-eating bats.

#7

Which of the following statements, if true, best supports the claim above?

Moth species that can hear the sounds emitted by insect-eating bats are less likely to be caught by such bats than are moth species that cannot hear these sounds.

When a moth changes its speed or direction of flight, there is a change in the sound pattern generated by the moth’s wing movements.

Those moths that cannot hear the sounds emitted by insect-eating bats live longer on the average than those that can hear such sounds when both kinds of moth are in an environment continuously free of such bats.

Moths that are capable of hearing the sounds emitted by insect-eating bats differ in their abilities to use evasive action to escape capture by such bats.

Those moth species that cannot hear the sounds emitted by insect-eating bats are among the species of insects that are most likely to be caught by such bats.

GRE Critical Reasoning

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