NEW QUESTION 175
In January there was a large drop in the number of new houses sold, because interest rates for mortgages were falling and many consumers were waiting to see how low the rates would go. This large sales drop was accompanied by a sharp rise in the average price of new houses sold.
Which of the following, if true, best explains the sharp rise in the average price of new houses?

NEW QUESTION 176
It is known from cave paintings and other evidence that the hunting people occupying the Bax Cave area in Country X tens of thousands of years ago repeatedly set fire to the surrounding area. Archaeologists hypothesize that because the fires caused later plant growth on the land, the hunters set the fires in order to attract herbivorous prey species. Such actions, they claim, are evidence for the mental capacity to delay gratification for weeks, months, or even years.
Which of the following would it be most useful to determine in evaluating the archaeologists’ claim?

NEW QUESTION 177
A certain store purchased grills for $50 each and lawn chairs for $5 each and then sold each grill and each chair. The store’s gross profit on each grill was 30 percent of its purchase price, and the store’s gross profit on each chair was 50 percent of Its purchase price. If the store sold 5 times as many chairs as grills and If the store’s total gross profit on the grills and chairs was $550, what was the store’s total revenue from the sale of the grills and chairs?

NEW QUESTION 178
Medical waste is generally collected by gravity chutes, carts, or pneumatic tubes, each of which have their own advantages and disadvantages.

NEW QUESTION 179
Many companies today are making new product development a central element of their competitive strategy.
Because the potential benefits of successful product innovation are great-prolonged growth, superior financial returns, and strong investor interest-many companies offer employees incentives such as promotions and bonuses for developing new products, incentives not offered for innovations in other areas of the business, firms’ priorities can also be shaped by their measurement systems, since these systems can directly measure returns from new products more immediately than they can measure returns from investments in such areas as organizational restructuring or innovations in marketing.
But the organizational culture of such companies can hurt them in the marketplace because a narrow focus on product development can ultimately detract from a firm’s performance. For instance, a company’s ability to profit from new products can be severely hampered if it has neglected other functions and business processes.
If a company develops a superior new product but is unable to distribute and promote t rapidly, competitors with better distribution systems may copy the product and introduce It into the market before the innovator can profit from its innovation. In contrast, effective distribution, marketing, and accounting systems-that is, strong overall business systems -can act as entry barriers, deterring would-be competitors from entering a particular It can be inferred from the passage that the author would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements about organizational culture?

NEW QUESTION 180
Medical researcher: A study tracked fluid consumption by thousands of middle-aged peopte for several years.
During the study, the people who drank the least fluid were the most Beefy to develop kidney disease. Thus, for such peopte, increasing dairy fluid consumption is likely to prevent the development of kidney disease.
Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the medical researcher’s argument?

NEW QUESTION 181
Incumbents in the United States House of Representatives who spend large amounts of money on a reelection campaign usually lose, whereas those who spend relatively little money usually win. Thus, heavy campaign spending is detrimental to an incumbent’s reelection campaign.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

NEW QUESTION 182
One variety of partially biodegradable plastic beverage container is manufactured from small bits of plastic bound together by a degradable bonding agent such as cornstarch. Since only the bonding agent degrades, leaving the small bits of plastic, no less plastic refuse per container is produced when such containers are discarded than when comparable non-biodegradable containers are discarded.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?

NEW QUESTION 183
Bank depositors in the United States are all financially protected against bank failure because the government insures all individuals’ bank deposits. An economist argues that this insurance is partly responsible for the high rate of bank failures, since it removes from depositors any financial incentive to find out whether the bank that holds their money is secure against failure. If depositors were more selective, then banks would need to be secure in order to compete for depositors’ money.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the economist’s argument?

NEW QUESTION 184
High levels of fertilizer and pesticides, needed when farmers try to produce high yield of the same crop year after year, pollute water supplies. Experts therefore urge farmers to diversify their crops and to rotate their plantings yearly.
To receive governmental price-support benefits for a crop, farmers must have produced that same crop for the past several years.
The statements above, if true, best support which of the following conclusions?

NEW QUESTION 185
Researchers studying long-term changes In regional mouse populations have found that by focusing on the populations of a rare but widespread and easily identifiable species of mouse (Species X), they can make fairly accurate estimations about the total regional mouse populations.
In a report on a recent study that Included the data tables that follow, the researchers provided some addenda:
1. “The Species X population of Region CV increased by 123,995 between 1990 and 2005.
2. In contrast, the Species X population of Region EW declined by about 52% during that same time.

NEW QUESTION 186
Since the mayor’s publicity campaign for Greenville’s bus service began six months ago, morning automobile traffic into the midtown area of the city has decreased seven percent. During the same period, there has been an equivalent rise in the number of persons riding buses into the midtown area. Obviously, the mayor’s publicity campaign has convinced many people to leave their cars at home and ride the bus to work.
Which of the following, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion drawn above?

NEW QUESTION 187

NEW QUESTION 188
A company has a total of 1,650 employees, some of whom are office workers. How many of the employees are enrolled In Medical Plan X ?
(1) The number of employees not enrolled In the plan Is 75 more than the number of office workers enrolled In the plan.
(2) The number of employees enrolled in the plan Is twice the number of office workers enrolled in the plan.

NEW QUESTION 189
Which of the following is the most logical completion of the passage below?
Many companies have been pushing for a three-week extension of daylight saving time, which would mean that the sun would continue to set an hour later during the fall months. The owners of a chain of convenience stores, for example, expect to gain $15 million a year in additional sales, mostly from people who tend to______

NEW QUESTION 190
The labor market is changing yet again. Increasingly, American business is turning to interim staffing to cover a greater number of its employment vacancies. Once interim (or temporary) staffing was reserved for the lower-level positions requiring little training, such as an envelope stuffer, receptionist, day laborer, and the like. Today, however, a more highly trained professional is being sought for interim work. It is not uncommon to find computer programmers, writers, marketing professionals, CPAs, and even chief financial officers working in an interim capacity. The reasons for these changes in staffing norms are generated at both the employer and employee level. Employers are pushing the drive toward interim staffing in order to maintain maximum flexibility.
Companies can be more innovative and flexible in their planning cycles if they have the option to hire employees on an as-needed basis. Additionally, employers save money using interim staffers, as they are not required to provide health insurance to temporary workers and they are not obligated to pay severance when the job terminates. Employees, too, are pushing the trend toward interim staffing. Increasingly, professionals are seeking more flexibility in their work schedules – often in response to family obligations.
No longer does the permanent 9 to 5, Monday through Friday schedule work for everyone. By working interim, employees can work when it fits their schedules. However, interim staffing is not for everyone.
Organizations whose workflow requires continuity of personnel may find interim staffing an impediment to productivity. Likewise, employees who need a steady source of income or who require the health insurance and other benefits provided by permanent employers may find the unpredictability in interim work problematic.
According to the passage, the main benefit to employers of interim staffing is

NEW QUESTION 191
Some communities in Florida are populated almost exclusively by retired people and contain few, if any, families with small children. Yet these communities are home to thriving businesses specializing in the rental of furniture for infants and small children.
Which of the following, if true, best reconciles the seeming discrepancy described above?

NEW QUESTION 192
Mayor: In each of the past five years, the city has cut school funding and each time school officials complained that the cuts would force them to reduce expenditures for essential services. But each time, only expenditures for nonessential services were actually reduced. So school officials can implement further cuts without reducing any expenditures for essential services.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the mayor’s conclusion?

NEW QUESTION 193
In 1986, the city of Los Diablos had 20 days on which air pollution reached unhealthful amounts and a smog alert was put into effect. In early 1987, new air pollution control measures were enacted, but the city had smog alerts on 31 days that year and on 39 days the following year. In 1989, however, the number of smog alerts in Los Diablos dropped to sixteen. The main air pollutants in Los Diablos are ozone and carbon monoxide, and since 1986 the levels of both have been monitored by gas spectrography.
Which of the following statements, assuming that each is true, would be LEAST helpful in explaining the air pollution levels in Los Diablos between 1986 and 1989?

NEW QUESTION 194
Welleby’s Plan
The water In the underground water table beneath the town of Welleby is moderately saline-
20,000millkjrarns of salt per liter of water (mg/L), or roughly half as saline as ocean water. To lower the level of the water table and thus prevent agricultural land from being inundated with salt water, the town plans to pump water from the table at a rate of 450kiloliters per day (kL/day) into a large shallow pond, allowing much of the water to evaporate. The town plans to divert 10percent of the water pumped from the water table to supplement Us supply of drinking water, which Is currently piped In from great distances. Due to the water’s supply, the town intends to construct a desalination plant to treat the diverted water for use as drinking water.
Desalination Types

Comparison
Welleby is deciding among the following three desalination methods.
Reverse Osmosis (RO): Water Is pushed through a membrane, leaving salts behind. RO systems can handle a large range of water flow rates and use relatively little energy. However, RO membranes are expensive and must be replaced every 2 to 5 years. There is also a possibility that bacteria can grow on the membrane.
Introducing tastes and odors Into the desalinated water.
Multi-Effect Distillation (MED): Saline water Is heated to produce water vapor, from which Is condensed potable fresh water. This process requires large amounts of energy, regardless of the salinity of the source water. It becomes more cost effective as water volumes increase.
Electrodialysis (ED): Electricity is used to selectively move salts through a membrane. Consumption of energy Is directly proportional to the salinity of the water to be treated, so with higher salinities the process rapidly becomes more costly than other methods. ED membranes need to be replaced every 7 to 10years.
Based on the information provided, which one of the following benefits to Welleby is most likely to result from Its building a desalination plant?

NEW QUESTION 195
In 1990 all of the people who applied for a job at Evco also applied for a job at Radeco, and Evco and Radeco each offered jobs to half of these applicants. Therefore, every one of these applicants must have been offered a job in 1990.
The argument above is based on which of the following assumptions about these job applicants?

NEW QUESTION 196
While we believe that supporters of this measure are well-meaning, they have intentional understated of the measure and how much of an impact it has on individuals.