1. Patel: Although enrollment in the region's high school has been decreasing for several years, enrollment at the elementary school has grown considerably. Therefore, the regional school board proposes building a new elementary school.
Quintero: Another solution would be to convert some high school classrooms temporarily into classrooms for elementary school students.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to support Quintero's alternative proposal?
(A) Some rooms at the high school cannot be con-verted into rooms suitable for the use of ele-mentary school students.
(B) The cost of building a high school is higher than the cost of building an elementary school.
(C) Although the birth rate has not increased, the number of families sending their children to the region's high school has increased markedly.
(D) A high school atmosphere could jeopardize the safety and self-confidence of elementary school students.
(E) Even before the region's high school population began to decrease, several high school class-rooms rarely needed to be used.
2. Peter: More than ever before in Risland, college graduates with science degrees are accepting permanent jobs in other fields. That just goes to show that scientists in Risland are not being paid enough.
Lila: No, it does not. These graduates are not working in science for the simple reason that there are not enough jobs in science in Risland to employ all of these graduates.
Which of the following, if true in Risland, would most undermine the reasoning in Peter's argument?
(A) The college graduates with science degrees who are not working in science are currently earning lower salaries than they would earn as scientists.
(B) Fewer college students than ever before are receiving degrees in science.
(C) The number of jobs in science has steadily risen in the last decade.
(D) A significant number of college graduates with science degrees worked at low-paying jobs while they were in college.
(E) Every year some recent college graduates with science degrees accept permanent jobs in nonscientific fields.
3.Counselor: Every year a popular newsmagazine pub-lishes a list of United States colleges, ranking them according to an overall numerical score that is a composite of ratings according to sev-eral criteria. However, the overall scores gen-erally should not be used by students as the basis for deciding to which colleges to apply.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to justify the counselor's recommendation?
(A) The vast majority of people who purchase the magazine in which the list appears are not college-bound students.
(B) Colleges that are ranked highest in the magazine's list use this fact in advertisements aimed at attracting students.
(C) The rankings seldom change from one year to the next.
(D) The significance that particular criteria have for any two students is likely to differ according to the students' differing needs.
(E) Some college students who are pleased with their schools considered the magazine's rankings before deciding which college to attend.
4. A thorough search of Edgar Allan Poe's correspon-dence has turned up not a single letter in which he mentions his reputed morphine addiction. On the basis of this evidence it is safe to say that Poe's reputation for having been a morphine addict is undeserved and that reports of his supposed addiction are untrue.
Which of the following is assumed by the argument above?
(A) Reports claiming that Poe was addicted to mor-phine did not begin to circulate until after his death.
(B) None of the reports of Poe's supposed morphine addiction can be traced to individuals who actu-ally knew Poe.
(C) Poe's income from writing would not have been sufficient to support a morphine addiction.
(D) Poe would have been unable to carry on an extensive correspondence while under the influence of morphine.
(E) Fear of the consequences would not have pre-vented Poe from indicating in his correspon-dence that he was addicted to morphine.
5. Adelle: The government's program to reduce the unemployment rate in the province of Carthena by encouraging job creation has failed, since the rate there has not changed appreciably since the program began a year ago.
Fran: But the unemployment rate in Carthena had been rising for three years before the program began, so the program is helping.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly counters Fran's objection to Adelle's argument?
(A) The government is advised by expert economists, some of whom specialize in employment issues.
(B) The unemployment rate in the province of Carthena has historically been higher than that of the country as a whole.
(C) The current government was elected by a wide margin, because of its promises to reduce the unemployment rate in Carthena.
(D) Around the time the government program began, large numbers of unemployed Carthena residents began leaving the province to look for work elsewhere.
(E) The unemployment rate in Carthena had been relatively stable until shortly before the current government took office.
6. Soft Drink Manufacturer：Our new children's soft drink, RipeCal, is fortified with calcium.Since calcium is essential for developing healthy bones, drinking RipeCal regularly will help make children healthy.Consumer Advocate：But RipeCal also contains large amounts of sugar, and regularly consuming large amounts of sugar is unhealthful, especially for children.
In responding to the soft drink manufacturer, the consumer advocate does which of the following?
(A)Challenges the manufacturer's claim about the nutritional value of calcium in children's diets
(B)Argues that the evidence cited by the manufac-turer, when properly considered, leads to a conclusion opposite to that reached by the manufacturer.
(C)Implies that the manufacturer of a product is typically unconcerned with the nutritional value of that product.
(D)Questions whether a substance that is healthful when eaten in moderation can be unhealthful when eaten in excessive amounts.
(E)Presents additional facts that call into question the conclusion drawn by the manufacturer.
7.Over a period of several months, researchers attached small lights to the backs of wetas—flightless insects native to New Zealand—enabling researchers for the first time to make comprehensive observations of the insects' nighttime activities.Thus, since wetas forage only at night, the researchers' observations will significantly improve knowledge of the normal foraging habits of wetas.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
(A) Researchers were interested only in observing the wetas' foraging habits and so did not keep track of other types of behavior.
(B) No pattern of behavior that is exhibited by wetas during the nighttime is also exhibited by wetas during the daytime.
(C)Attaching the small lights to the wetas' backs did not greatly alter the wetas' normal night-time foraging habits.
(D)Wetas typically forage more frequently during the months in which the researchers studied them than they do at other times.
(E)The researchers did not use other observational techniques to supplement their method of using small lights to track the nighttime behavior of wetas.
