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24(Z). In the past, every ten-percentage-point increase in cigarette prices in the country of Coponia has decreased per capita sales of cigarettes by four percent.  Coponia is about to raise taxes on cigarettes by 9 cents per pack.  The average price of cigarettes in Coponia is and has been for more than a year 90 cents per pack.  So the tax hike stands an excellent chance of reducing per capita sales of cigarettes by four percent.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A.        Tobacco companies are unlikely to reduce their profit per pack of cigarettes to avoid an increase in the cost per pack to consumers in Coponia.
B.        Previous increases in cigarette prices in Coponia have generally been due to increases in taxes on cigarettes.
C.        Any decrease in per capita sales of cigarettes in Coponia will result mainly from an increase in the number of people who quit smoking entirely.
D.        At present, the price of a pack of cigarettes in Coponia includes taxes that amount to less than ten percent of the total selling price.
E.        The number of people in Coponia who smoke cigarettes has remained relatively constant for the past several years.

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23.(Z)Early in the twentieth century, Lake Konfa became very polluted.  Recently fish populations have recovered as release of industrial pollutants has declined and the lake’s waters have become cleaner.  Fears are now being voiced that the planned construction of an oil pipeline across the lake’s bottom might revive pollution and cause the fish population to decline again.  However, a technology for preventing leaks is being installed.  Therefore, provided this technology is effective, those fears are groundless.

The argument depends on assuming which of the following?

A.        Apart from development related to the pipeline, there will be no new industrial development around the lake that will create renewed pollution in its waters.
B.        Other than the possibility of a leak, there is no realistic pollution threat posed to the lake by the pipeline’s construction.
C.        There is no reason to believe that the leak-preventing technology would be ineffective when installed in the pipeline in Lake Konfa.
D.        Damage to the lake’s fish populations would be the only harm that a leak of oil from the pipeline would cause.
E.        The species of fish that are present in Lake Konfa now are the same as those that were in the lake before it was affected by pollution.

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22(Z) Political advocacy groups have begun to use information services to disseminate information that is then accessed by the public via personal computer.  Since many groups are thus able to bypass traditional news sources, whose reporting is selective, and to present their political views directly to the public, information services present a more balanced picture of the complexities of political issues than any traditional news source presents.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument above depends?

A.        Information services are accessible to enough people to ensure that political advocacy groups can use these services to reach as large a percentage of the public as they could through traditional news sources.
B.        People could get a thorough understanding of a particular political issue by sorting through information provided by several traditional news sources, each with differing editorial biases.
C.        Information on political issues disseminated through information services does not come almost entirely from advocacy groups that share a single bias.
D.        Traditional news sources seldom report the views of political advocacy groups accurately.
E.        Most people who get information on political issues from newspapers and other traditional news sources can readily identify the editorial biases of those sources.

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21.(Z)Educational Theorist: Recent editorials have called for limits on the amount of homework assigned to children. They point out that free-time activities play an important role in childhood development and that large amounts of homework reduce children’s free time, hindering their development. But the average homework time for a ten year old, for example, is little more than 30 minutes per night. Clearly, therefore, there is no need to impose the
limits these editorials are calling for.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the educational theorist’s
argument relies?
A.        The free-time activities that ten year olds engage in most are all
approximately equally effective at fostering development
B.        Regularly doing homework assignments improves children’s academic
performance.
C.        Individual teachers are not the best judges of how much homework to
assign the children they teach
D.        In most schools, if not all, the homework assignments given are of a
length that does not diverge widely from the average.
E.        Free-time activities rarely teach children skills or information that they
can use in their academic work.

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20.(Z)Excavations of the Roman city of Sepphoris have uncovered numerous detailed mosaics depicting several readily identifiable animal species:  a hare, a partridge, and various Mediterranean fish.  Oddly, most of the species represented did not live in the Sepphoris region when these mosaics were created.  Since identical motifs appear in mosaics found in other Roman cities, however, the mosaics of Sepphoris were very likely created by traveling artisans from some other part of the Roman Empire.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A.        The Sepphoris mosaics are not composed exclusively of types of stones found naturally in the Sepphoris area.
B.        There is no single region to which all the species depicted in the Sepphoris mosaics are native.
C.        No motifs appear in the Sepphoris mosaics that do not also appear in the mosaics of some other Roman city.
D.        All of the animal figures in the Sepphoris mosaics are readily identifiable as representations of known species.
E.        There was not a common repertory of mosaic designs with which artisans who lived in various parts of the Roman Empire were familiar.

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19.(Z)Lawmaker: Raising taxes is not the only means of reducing government
debt. The government’s stockpile of helium is worth 25 percent more, at current market prices, than the debt accumulated in acquiring and storing it. Therefore, by selling the helium, the government can not only pay off that debt but reduce its overall debt as well.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
A.        The government has no current need for helium.
B.        Twenty-five percent of the debt the government has accumulated in
Stockpiling helium is not an insignificant portion of the government’s
Total debt.
C.        It is not in the lawmaker’s interest to advocate raising taxes as a
Means of reducing government debt.
D.        Attempts to sell the government’s helium will not depress the market
Price of helium by more than 25 percent.
E.        The government will not incur any costs in closing its facilities for
stockpiling helium.

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18(Z). Because it was long thought that few people would watch lengthy televised political messages, most televised political advertisements, like commercial advertisements, took the form of short messages.  Last year, however, one candidate produced a half-hour-long advertisement.  During the half hour the advertisement was aired, a substantial portion of the viewing public tuned into the advertisement.  Clearly, then, many more people are interested in watching lengthy televised political messages than was previously thought.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A.        The candidate’s ratings improved significantly as a result of the half-hour-long political advertisement.
B.        Political advertisements have become increasingly influential in determining voters’ decisions at the polls.
C.        Many people would appreciate the opportunity to become better acquainted with political candidates’ views on current political issues.
D.        Most people who are interested in political issues watch television regularly.
E.        Most of the viewers who tuned in to the candidate’s half-hour-long advertisement last year did not change channels after the first few minutes.

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17.(Z)The ancient Nubians inhabited an area in which typhus occurs, yet surprisingly few of their skeletons show the usual evidence of this disease.  The skeletons do show deposits of tetracycline, an antibiotic produced by a bacterium common in Nubian soil.  This bacterium can flourish on the dried grain used for making two staples of the Nubian diet, beer and bread.  Thus, tetracycline in their food probably explains the low incidence of typhus among ancient Nubians.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument relies?

A.        Infectious diseases other than typhus to which the ancient Nubians were exposed are unaffected by tetracycline.
B.        Tetracycline is not rendered ineffective as an antibiotic by exposure to the processes involved in making bread and beer.
C.        Typhus cannot be transmitted by ingesting bread or beer contaminated with the infectious agents of this disease.
D.        Bread and beer were the only items in the diet of the ancient Nubians which could have contained tetracycline.
E.        Typhus is generally fatal.

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16.(Z) In a study conducted in Pennsylvania, servers in various restaurants wrote “Thank you” on randomly selected bills before presenting the bills to their customers.  Tips on these bills were an average of three percentage points higher than tips on bills without the message.  Therefore, if servers in Pennsylvania regularly wrote “Thank you” on restaurant bills, their average income from tips would be significantly higher than it otherwise would have been.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument relies?

A.        The “Thank you” messages would have the same impact on regular patrons of a restaurant as they would on occasional patrons of the same restaurant.
B.        Regularly seeing “Thank you” written on their bills would not lead restaurant patrons to revert to their earlier tipping habits.
C.        The written “Thank you” reminds restaurant patrons that tips constitute a significant part of the income of many food servers.
D.        The rate at which people tip food servers in Pennsylvania does not vary with how expensive a restaurant is.
E.        Virtually all patrons of the Pennsylvania restaurants in the study who were given a bill with “Thank you” written on it left a larger tip than they otherwise would have.

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15.(Z)Press Secretary:  Our critics claim that the President’s recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties.  They offer as evidence the fact that 90 percent of the projects canceled were in such districts.  But all of the canceled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors.  So the President’s choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the press secretary’s argument depends?

A.        Canceling highway projects was not the only way for the President to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties.
B.        The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the President’s party.
C.        The number of projects canceled was a significant proportion of all the highway projects that were to be undertaken by the government in the near future.
D.        The highway projects canceled in districts controlled by the President’s party were not generally more expensive than the projects canceled in districts controlled by opposition parties.
E.        Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded by the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.