winterschool wrote:
Q1. Every action has consequences and among the consequences of any action are other actions. And knowing whether an action is good requires knowing whether its consequences are good, but we cannot know the future, so good actions are impossible. Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends? (A) Some actions have only other actions as consequences. (B) We can know that past actions were good. (C) To know that an action is good requires knowing that refraining from performing it is bad. (D) Only actions can be the consequences of other actions. (E) For an action to be good we must be able to know that it is good.
winterschool wrote:
Q2. Country Z’s National Health-Care Program(NHCP) provides free health care to all citizens. In the last five years, NHCP has received increase funds, both in absolute terms and as a percent of country Z’s gross national product. Yet the standard of health care in the country Z has decreased. Meanwhile, the standard of health care in other industrialized countries has increased. Clearly, over the past five years, NHCP must have become an overgrown and wasteful bureaucracy. Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion reached in the passage? A. Over the past five years, the percentage of the NHCP funds spent on actual health care has increased, while the percentage spent on the management of NHCP’s program has decreased. B. Five years ago the standard of health care in the country Z was better than the standard of health care in other industrialized countries that have national health care programs. C. The average salaries of doctors and nurses in country Z are slightly higher than the average salaries of doctors and nurses in other industrialized countries that have national health care programs D. National Healthcare programs in other industrialized countries provide free medical care to resident aliens and tourists, as well as to citizens. E. Over the past five years, the increase in the absolute amount of funds received by NHCP has averaged approximately two percent above country Z’s rate of inflation during that time period.
CR Questions September - 19 :Q1. Science, because people engage in it, is a socially embedded activity. It progresses by hunch, vision, and intuition. Much of its change through time does not record a closer approach to absolute truth, but the alternation of the cultural contexts that influence it so strongly. Facts are not pure and unsullied bits of information— culture influences what we see and how we see it. Theories, moreover, are not inexorable inductions from facts. The most creative theories are often imaginative visions imposed upon facts; the source of imagination is also strongly cultural.
The author implies that those who rely on scientific results should
a) realize that science relies on imagination to approach absolute truth
b) insist on pure and unsullied facts rather than on theories
c) understand that theories are frequently strict inductions from facts
d) consider the cultural biases of scientists
e) reject the imaginative visions imposed on facts
Difficulty - Hard
Q2. Tent caterpillars’ routes between their nests and potential food sources are marked with chemical traces called pheromones that the caterpillars leave behind. Moreover, routes from food sources back to the nest are marked more heavily than are merely exploratory routes that have failed to turn up a food source. Thus, tent caterpillars are apparently among the insect species that engage in communal foraging, which consists in the conveying of information concerning the location of food to other members of the colony, nest, or hive.
Which one of the following, if true, adds the most support to the argument?
(A) A hungry tent caterpillar is more likely to follow heavily marked routes than lightly marked routes.
(B) Tent caterpillars can detect the presence but not the concentration of pheromones.
(C) Sometimes individual tent caterpillars will not return to the nest until a food source is located.
(D) The pheromones left by tent caterpillars are different from the pheromones left by other animals.
(E) The pheromones that tent caterpillars leave behind are detectable by certain other species of caterpillars.
Difficulty - Hard