| Critical Reasoning Butler: August 2025 |
| August 22 | CR 1 | CR 2 |
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CR 1 Last year, Energy Corp's oil sales increased suddenly in the region of lower Ossamia. The Chief Financial Officer of the company explained this increase as the result of industrialization in the developing Ossamian nation of Kokua. He predicts that, consequently, trade made possible by industrialization will grow between Kokua and its Ossamian neighbors this year, leading to further increases in Energy Corp sales in the region.
Each of the following, if true, provides some support for the CFO's prediction described above EXCEPT:
A. Although non-Ossamian countries have a military and trade presence in Ossamia, their oil sales last year in the region were not significantly above normal levels.
B. Mines accessing Kokua's rich natural resources were put into operation for the first time last year.
C. Each of the Ossamian countries currently have few restrictions in place on the business that can be done with its neighboring countries.
D. One of Energy Corp's primary competitors had a tanker accident early last year that caused environmental damage in Ossamia and damaged the company's standing in the area.
E. One of Ossamia's neighbors, a developing nation, has a growing population with a reasonable amount of disposable wealth.
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CR 2 It is posited by some scientists that the near extinction of the sap-eating gray bat of northwestern America was caused by government-sponsored logging operations in the early 1920s that greatly reduced the species’ habitat.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly weakens the scientists’ claims?
(A) Logging operations in the 1920s are widely held responsible for the near extinction of other species that lived in the same area.
(B) A boom in new home construction in the early 1920s led congress to open federal lands to logging operations.
(C) A 5-year drought in the early 1920s severely reduced the output of sap in trees in northwestern America.
(D) Numbers of sightings of sap-eating gray bats fell to their lowest numbers in 1926.
(E) Sightings of sap-eating gray bats in Europe stayed roughly the same during the same period.