| Critical Reasoning Butler: June 2026 |
| June 3 | CR 1 | CR 2 |
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CR 1 Parkinson’s Law, an observation advanced by the British civil servant C. Northcote Parkinson, for whom it is named, posits that bureaucracies expand to fill the space available for their expansion. One of Parkinson’s principal pieces of evidence for his Law was the remarkable growth of the British Colonial Office, whose staff continued to swell as the British colonies weakened, and which actually attained its greatest size and influence at the precise moment the British colonial empire collapsed.
Which of the following does NOT illustrate a phenomenon similar to those covered by Parkinson’s Law?
A. The demand for military research tends to correlate positively with the amount of money governments allot to the military each year.
B. The bigger the pie that my aunt bakes, the more of my relatives show up to eat it.
C. Many prominent Hollywood sitcom writers attest that the time it takes to script an episode is dictated by the time a studio provides them to script that episode.
D. Parkinson’s coefficient of inefficiency further predicts that the efficiency of an administrative body decreases in proportion to the number of members added to it.
E. Most professional athletes remark that the amount of money required to sustain their families, image, and lifestyle grows as their income over the course of their careers.
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CR 2 Environmental groups are aggressively protesting the proposed use of a new technique for mining oil from the fringes of underground aquifers. These groups complain that such mining will lead to instances of contaminated groundwater and to sinkholes and other disasters in areas near the proposed mining. But, as the mining companies are quick to retort, the countries already using this technique have not reported any groundwater contamination or environmental issues. Therefore, it is safe to proceed with the new technique.
Which of the following, if true, most undermines the conclusion above?
(A) Some of the countries currently using the new technique have only been doing so for two years or less.
(B) Other widely-used techniques used to procure oil have led to even worse contamination issues than what environmentalists predict could happen with the new technique
(C) The countries currently using the technique are so dependent on oil revenue that they are unlikely to report any problems that might require them to stop.
(D) In the years that the new technique had been in use, several safeguards have been added to prevent the contamination of nearby water.
(E) All of the aquifers near which the proposed technique would be employed are used or will soon be used to provide drinking water for their surrounding communities.