Critical Reasoning Test 2
Practice critical reasoning skills with 15 questions on logical arguments, assumptions, and drawing conclusions. Covers argument evaluation, assumption identification, and critical analysis of claims and passages.
Questions
Directions: The following passage is followed by a question with five options. Choose the best option.
To be mentally healthy, people must have self respect. People can maintain self respect only by continually earning the respect of others they esteem. They can earn this respect only by treating these others morally.
Which of the following conclusions can be properly drawn from the statements above?
- People who are mentally healthy will be treated morally by others.
- People who are mentally healthy will have treated morally those they esteem.
- People who are mentally healthy must have self respect in order to be treated morally by others.
- People can expect to be treated morally by others only if they do the same to others.
- Mental health and morality are irretrievably interlinked.
Directions: The following passage is followed by a question with five options. Choose the best option.
During the last twenty years, eleven percent of those who received certification to practice in a particular profession were women and all those who received certification during those years obtained full time positions. Nevertheless, only five percent of the full-time positions in this profession are currently held by women.
Which of the following, if true, could explain the difference in the percentage mentioned in the passage above?
- It was easier to obtain certification twenty years ago than it currently is.
- A majority of those currently in the profession were hired more than twenty years ago, when virtually every one in the profession was male.
- The women certified in the last twenty years have tended to choose different specialties within the profession than the men have tended to choose.
- Male and female members of the profession have had equal pay scales for the past twenty years.
- More women than men have had to resettle after marriage, at other locations and in other professions.
Directions: The following passage is followed by a question with five options. Choose the best option.
The new car to buy this year is the Santro. We had 100 randomly selected motorists drive the Santro and the other two leading sub-compact cars. Seventy-five drivers ranked the Santro first in handling. Sixty -nine rated the Santro first in styling. From the responses of these 100 drivers, we can show you that they ranked Santro first overall in our composite category of style, performance, comfort, and drivability.
The persuasive appeal of the advertisement's claim is most weakened by its use of the undefined word.
- Randomly
- Handling
- First
- Composite
Directions: Read the following passgae and choose the option that best answers the question that follows.
A reporter asked the chairman of a company: “Is your company going to continue to discriminate against women in its hiring and promotion policies?”
The above question of the reporter might be considered unfair for which of the following reasons?
I. Its construction seeks a “yes” or “no” answer where both might be inappropriate.
II. It is internally inconsistent.
III. It contains a hidden presupposition which the responder might wish to contest.
- I only
- II only
- III only
- I and III only
- I and II only
Directions: The following passage is followed by a question with five options. Choose the best option.
Ms. Aruna Khadiwala argued that money and time invested in acquiring a professional degree are totally wasted. As evidence supporting her argument, she offered the case of a man who, at considerable expense of money and time, completed his law degree and then married and lived as a house-husband taking care of his children.
Ms. Aruna makes the unsupported assumption that
- a qualification in law is useful only in pursuing law-related activities
- what was not acceptable twenty-five years ago may very well be acceptable today
- wealth is more important than learning
- professional success is a function of the quality of one’s education
- the main area of operation of a male lies essentially outside the house
Directions: The following passage is followed by a question with five options. Choose the best option.
The recent decline in the value of rupee was triggered by a prediction of slower economic growth in the coming year. This prediction would not have adversely affected the rupee but for the government's huge budget deficit. Budget deficit should, therefore, be decreased to prevent future currency declines.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the conclusion about how to prevent future currency declines?
- The government has made little attempt to reduce the budget deficit.
- The budget deficit has not caused a slowdown in economic growth.
- The value of rupee declined several times in the year prior to the recent prediction of slower economic growth.
- Before there was a large budget deficit, predictions of slower economic growth had frequently caused decline in rupee value.
- Similar predictions of slower economic growth in a previous year did not result in currency decline.
Directions: The following passage is followed by a question with five options. Choose the best option.
A study published by the Department of Education shows that children in the central parts of cities lag far behind students in the suburbs and the rural areas, in reading skills. The report blamed this differential on the overcrowding in the classrooms of city schools. I maintain, however, that the real reason that city children are poorer readers than non-city children is that they do not get enough fresh air and sunshine.
Which of the following would LEAST strengthen the author's point in the argument above?
- Medical research showing a correlation between air pollution and learning disabilities.
- A report by educational experts demonstrating that there is no relationship between the number of students in a classroom and a student's ability to read.
- A notice released by the Department of Education retracting that part of their report which mentioned over-crowding as the reason for the differential.
- A proposal by the federal government to fund emergency programs to hire more teachers for central city schools in an attempt to reduce overcrowding in the classrooms.
- Another study with findings almost contrary to the aforesaid study.
Directions: Sanders Sandberg, a Swedish transhumanist has expounded on something called a 'breakeven point', thus: “As medicine and life extension advances, the life expectancy of the population increases somewhat each year, and this process may accelerate given new technologies or new knowledge. The longer you live the more medical advances can occur. If the increase of life extends your life expectancy by more than one year, the break even point is reached after the fusion (physics term for the point where more energy is produced than is used to drive the reactor) and individuals have a finite chance of living indefinitely.”
Quite naturally the breakeven point presupposes that medical advances never run into firm barriers and that they can be developed fast enough. Sure, in unfounded models of medical thought like bloodletting homeopathy, dead-ends are to be expected but given the history of coherent medicine, such barriers have never been encountered as yet. By this precedent, therefore, they will in all likelihood never be encountered in the future either.
Sandberg's breakeven point' is conceptualized on the assumption that
- medicinal sciences will reach their zenith in one's lifetime
- every human being craves a longer life
- individuals having a finite chance will grow steadily indefinitely
- advances in medical sciences will grow steadily forever
Maintaining mix-and-match information systems and an outdated application infrastructure can be expensive. Today's users demand applications that enable publishing communication and collaboration, workflow and decision support, and transaction integrity. Information Technology managers, on the other hand, try to reduce system costs and complexity.
The author of the above believes that
- the objective of users and managers of information technology are identical
- the reduction of system costs is a major concern for users of information technology
- maintenance of outdated application infrastructure is not expensive
- the reduction of system complexity is an objective of information technology managers
- mix-and-match information systems do not suit today's users
Directions: Sanders Sandberg, a Swedish transhumanist has expounded on something called a 'breakeven point', thus: “As medicine and life extension advances, the life expectancy of the population increases somewhat each year, and this process may accelerate given new technologies or new knowledge. The longer you live the more medical advances can occur. If the increase of life extends your life expectancy by more than one year, the break even point is reached after the fusion (physics term for the point where more energy is produced than is used to drive the reactor) and individuals have a finite chance of living indefinitely.”
Quite naturally the breakeven point presupposes that medical advances never run into firm barriers and that they can be developed fast enough. Sure, in unfounded models of medical thought like bloodletting homeopathy, dead-ends are to be expected but given the history of coherent medicine, such barriers have never been encountered as yet. By this precedent, therefore, they will in all likelihood never be encountered in the future either.
The author's belief of continued uninterrupted advances in medicine presupposes that
- what happened before will continue to happen
- medicine as a field will attract research forever
- coherent medicine has never reached a dead end
- no knowledge ever peaks
We hear it said that, for all the social advancement that India has made over the past fifty years - for all of the cultural and social barriers that we have removed, this remains an inherently socially prejudiced society, in which the higher class has never fully accepted the equal humanity of the lower class. Those who repeat this slander against India neglect the fact that, as I write, some of the most popular TV programmes focus on the lives of proud lower class families, whose members have become some of the best-recognized-and most widely admired-people in India.
The argument above assumes that
- TV program production is a challenging and financially rewarding profession
- fifty years ago a TV program on lower class family would not have been popular
- those who label India a racist society seek to start unrest and disrupt the fabric of Indian society
- a person's attitude towards a character on TV program is like his attitude toward real people with similar characteristics
- the cultural and social barriers do not stand in the way of upwardly mobile people from lower class families
Literary historians today have rejected conventional analysis of the development of English Renaissance drama. They no longer accept the idea that the sudden achievement of Elizabethan playwrights was a historical anomaly, a sort of magical rediscovery of ancient Greek dramatic form applied to contemporary English subject matter. Instead, most students of the theatre now view Elizabethan drama as being organically related to traditional local drama, particularly medieval morality plays.
Which of the following is not consistent with the passage above?
- England had a dramatic tradition before the Renaissance period.
- Elizabethan drama, once thought to be a sudden blossoming forth of creativity, is now seen as part of a historical continuum.
- Historians' views of the antecedents of English Renaissance drama have changed considerably.
- Although English Renaissance drama treats English subject matter, its source of form and method is classical Greek drama.
Directions: The following passage is followed by a question with five options. Choose the best option.
Nineteenth-century art critics judged art by the realism of its method of representation. It was assumed that the realistic method developed from primitive beginnings to the perfection of formal realism. It is one of the permanent gains of the aesthetic revolution of the twentieth century that we are rid of this type of aesthetics.
It can be inferred from the above passage that the artistic revolution of the twentieth century had which of the following effects?
- It de-emphasized realistic representation as an evaluative consideration for judging works of art.
- It permitted modern critics to appreciate the simplicity of primitive art.
- It repudiated the realistic representation found in the art of the past.
- It reinforced traditional ways of looking at and judging great art.
- It discouraged exhibitionism and emphasized visual aestheticism.
Directions: The following passage is followed by a question with five options. Choose the best option.
“We must do something about the way we do business in the Power Industry” said the CEO of Enron. “In the last five years of our existence, Enron has not made a single paisa profit despite pumping a couple of hundred million dollars in the business. Every coaching class in the city of Mumbai makes about 10 lakhs of profit in its second year of operation investing less than 1% of that amount”.
The argument of the CEO above can be criticized in all of the following ways EXCEPT that
- it introduces an inappropriate analogy
- it smacks of unwarranted authority of his being a CEO
- it fails to take into account the fact that power companies make huge profit in the later years of existence
- it misuses numerical data
Directions: The following passage is followed by a question with five options. Choose the best option.
PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT: When you enroll with Golden Careers Business Institute (GCBI), you will have access to our placement counseling service. Last year, 92% of our graduates who asked us to help them find jobs, found them. So go to GCBI for your future!
Which of the following would be appropriate questions to ask in order to determine the value of the preceding claim?
I. How many of your graduates asked GCBI for assistance?
II. How many people graduated from GCBI last year?
III. Did those who asked for jobs find ones in the areas for which they were trained?
IV. Was GCBI responsible for finding the jobs or did the graduates find them independently?
- I and II only
- II and III only
- I, II and III only
- I, II and IV only
- All of them