| Critical Reasoning Butler: July 2025 |
| July 17 | CR 1 | CR 2 |
______________________________________
CR 1 The use of drugs in sports is on the rise, most drugs having dosages of around ten 200mg pills a month at regular intervals. Drug manufacturers have reduced the time in which chemical compounds sought after by sports doping tests are broken up by physiological systems and released by the body to 48 hours. The International Professional Athletics Group plans on doubling the number of drug tests, originally numbering five, conducted during the last month before a competition, so that even advanced drugs are likely to be detected by the new testing methods.
Which of the following, if true, casts the most doubt regarding the effectiveness of the International Athletics Group's plan?
(A) A typical 200mg pill containing a compound for the improvement of physical performance can quite often produce a number of long-term side effects that cannot always be treated.
(B) Companies that specialize in drug testing for sports competitions used to be paid by organizers per competition that they provided services for, but now charge per individual test that they administer, such tests being extremely expensive.
(C) A study by a group of psychiatrists revealed that the testing for drugs severely affected the psychological state of athletes, and a law was passed allowing sports professionals to arrange the times of their drug examinations personally.
(D) Even if more detections are made amongst professional athletes, it is likely, because of the immense pressure on them, that many college athletes will continue to use drugs to enhance their performance.
(E) If the number of tests conducted during the last month before a competition is increased, drug producers will be able to raise the prices of the more sophisticated products, those that do not result in traces that last longer than 48 hours.
________________________________________
CR 2 Music industry executives have claimed that online file-sharing networks are significantly hurting their business because potential consumers are getting music for free that they would otherwise purchase. However, after file-sharing networks started to become popular, CD sales actually increased.Which of the following, if true, best explains the apparent contradiction described above?A. File-sharing networks carry a more complete variety of music than most traditional music stores.B. The few people using file-sharing networks already purchased more music than most people.C. Many people prefer to store their music as computer files rather than maintain large CD collections.D. Many consumers have purchased music by artists they discovered through file-sharing networks.E. Music available on file-sharing networks is of the same audio quality as music on commercially produced CDs.