| Critical Reasoning Butler: April 2025 |
| April 2 | CR 1 | CR 2 |
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CR 1 Some archeologists hypothesize that Irish monks were the first Europeans to reach North America, roughly 100 years before the Vikings. The Irish monks, it is believed, crossed the Atlantic in boats constructed primarily of leather, in order to find isolation and solitude, and some of them might have settled with the Native Americans. Unfortunately, no physical evidence has been found to support this theory.
Which of the following, if true, best supports the hypothesis of these archeologists, taking into account the paucity of physical evidence?
A Archeologists now believe that the Vikings went to North America 50 years earlier than had been previously thought.
B Viking longboats were much faster and sturdier than Irish leather-bound boats.
C Leather tends to rot after only a couple of decades.
D Anthropologists have found no evidence of any Irish words or expressions in the languages of modern-day North America.
E Concrete, physical evidence of Viking settlements have been discovered only in Newfoundland, Canada.
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CR 2 Marketing Director: For our new computer to be profitable, it must both be accessible to a large number of purchasers and introduce significant new innovations over the previous model. However, the cost of the hardware to make the computer much more advanced than its predecessor will almost certainly necessitate a price point far above what almost all of our potential customers can afford.
The claims, if true, most strongly support which of the following conclusions?
A. The company should work to convince consumers that the innovations in the new model justify a significantly higher price point.
B. A computer model that has some, but not all, of the proposed innovations and that is only slightly more expensive than the current model is more likely to be successful.
C. The new computer model is unlikely to be profitable model for the company.
D. Reducing the price point of the proposed model will definitely prevent the company from making the technological innovations required for the model to be profitable.
E. Price and innovation are the two most important considerations in computer purchases.