Hi all,
I got some verbal questions here and wanted to share with you:
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1)
Twenty years ago, Balzania put in place regulations requiring operators of surface mines to pay for the reclamation of mined-out land. Since then, reclamation technology has not improved. Yet, the average reclamation cost for a surface coal mine being reclaimed today is only four dollars per ton of coal that the mine produced, less than half what it cost to reclaim surface mines in the years immediately after the regulations took effect.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to account for the drop in reclamation costs described?
A. Even after Balzania began requiring surface mine operators to pay reclamation costs, coal mines in Balzania continued to be less expensive to operate than coal mines in almost any other country.
B. In the twenty years since the regulations took effect, the use of coal as a fuel has declined from the level it was at in the previous twenty years.
C. Mine operators have generally ceased surface mining in the mountainous areas of Balzania because reclamation costs per ton of coal produced are particularly high for mines in such areas.
D. Even after Balzania began requiring surface mine operators to pay reclamation costs, surface mines continued to produce coal at a lower total cost than underground mines.
E. As compared to twenty years ago, a greater percentage of the coal mined in Balzania today comes from surface mines.
2)
For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool, providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year.
A. providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing
B. providing them with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces
C. provided with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing
D. provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces
E. provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, Holstein cows will produce
3) In one state, all cities and most towns have antismoking ordinances. A petition entitled “Petition for Statewide Smoking Restrictionâ€

Thanks for your answer. Hare are some more questions:

4) Kernland imposes a high tariff on the export of unprocessed cashew nuts in order to ensure that the nuts are sold to domestic processing plants. If the tariff were lifted and unprocessed cashews were sold at world market prices, more farmers could profit by growing cashews. However, since all the processing plants are in urban areas, removing the tariff would seriously hamper the government’s effort to reduce urban unemployment over the next five years.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
A. Some of the by-products of processing cashews are used for manufacturing paints and plastics.
B. Other countries in which cashews are processed subsidize their processing plants.
C. More people in Kernland are engaged in farming cashews than in processing them.
D. Buying unprocessed cashews at lower than world market prices enables cashew processors in Kernland to sell processed nuts at competitive prices.
E. A lack of profitable crops is driving an increasing number of small farmers in Kernland off their land and into the cities.

5) In the year following an eight-cent increase in the federal tax on a pack of cigarettes, sales of cigarettes fell ten percent. In contrast, in the year prior to the tax increase, sales had fallen one percent. The volume of cigarette sales is therefore strongly related to the after-tax price of a pack of cigarettes.
The argument above requires which of following assumptions?
A. During the year following the tax increase, the pretax price of a pack of cigarettes did not increase by as much as it had during the year prior to the tax increase.
B. The one percent fall in cigarette sales in the year prior to tax increase was due to a smaller tax increase.
C. The pretax price of a pack of cigarettes gradually decreased throughout the year before and the year after the tax increase.
D. For the year following the tax increase, the pretax price of a pack of cigarettes was not eight or more cents lower than it had been the previous year.
E. As the after-tax price of a pack of cigarettes rises, the pretax price also rises.

6) The nineteenth-century chemist Humphry Davy presented the results of his early experiments in his “Essay on Heat and Light,â€

Use of the continuous tense in A does not seem right. "Cows are producing" ??
D, for a general description like this, should be more appropriate.

8) D.

if the users were using computers at work, they were not using computers in their "free" time. so can't compare with users who used computers in their free time.

For the next lot,

E
A
A
A
E.

Now for the OAs?

All the questions that I posted here were from the GMAT sets and as I was unsure of the answers( some of them were just too ridiculous), I shared them with you.
1)
Twenty years ago, Balzania put in place regulations requiring operators of surface mines to pay for the reclamation of mined-out land. Since then, reclamation technology has not improved. Yet, the average reclamation cost for a surface coal mine being reclaimed today is only four dollars per ton of coal that the mine produced, less than half what it cost to reclaim surface mines in the years immediately after the regulations took effect.
Which of the following, if true, most helps to account for the drop in reclamation costs described?
A. Even after Balzania began requiring surface mine operators to pay reclamation costs, coal mines in Balzania continued to be less expensive to operate than coal mines in almost any other country.
B. In the twenty years since the regulations took effect, the use of coal as a fuel has declined from the level it was at in the previous twenty years.
C. Mine operators have generally ceased surface mining in the mountainous areas of Balzania because reclamation costs per ton of coal produced are particularly high for mines in such areas.
D. Even after Balzania began requiring surface mine operators to pay reclamation costs, surface mines continued to produce coal at a lower total cost than underground mines.
E. As compared to twenty years ago, a greater percentage of the coal mined in Balzania today comes from surface mines.

I think C.

2) For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool, providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing an average of 2,275 gallons of milk each per year.
A. providing them with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing
B. providing them with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces
C. provided with high-energy feed, and milking them regularly, Holstein cows are producing
D. provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, the Holstein cow produces
E. provided with high-energy feed, and milked regularly, Holstein cows will produce
I think E is better than A since "Holstein cows" will require a verb in passive voice. Can anyone explain the use of "For the farmer who takes care to keep them cool" here?

3) In one state, all cities and most towns have antismoking ordinances. A petition entitled “Petition for Statewide Smoking Restrictionâ€