Some geologists argue that if oil is as common in unsam-pled areas of the world as it is i

r in a commercial to evoke the famous singer s well-known rendition of a certain song. As a result of the lawsuit, advertising firms will stop using imitators in commercials. Therefore, advertising costs will rise, since famous singers services cost more than those of their imitators. The conclusion above is based on which of the following assumptions?

A．Most people are unable to distinguish a famous singer"s rendition of a song from a good imitator" s rendition of the same song.

B．Commercials using famous singers are usually more effective than commercials using imitators of famous singers.

C．The original versions of some well-known songs are unavailable for use in commercials.

D．Advertising firms will continue to use imitators to mimic the physical mannerisms of famous singers.

E．The advertising industry will use well-known renditions of songs in commercials.

medical journal that has had them reviewed by a panel of experts in a process called peer review. It is claimed that this practice delays public access to potentially beneficial information that, in extreme instances, could save lives. Yet prepublication peer review is the only way to prevent erroneous and therefore potentially harmful information from reaching a public that is ill equipped to evaluate medical claims on its own. Therefore, waiting until a medical journal has published the research findings that have passed peer review is the price that must be paid to protect the public from making decisions based on possibly substandard research. The argument assumes that

A．unless medical research findings are brought to peer review by a medical journal, peer review will not occur.

B．anyone who does not serve on a medical review panel does not have the necessary knowledge and expertise to evaluate medical research findings.

C．the general public does not have access to the medical journals in which research findings are published.

D．all medical research findings are subjected to prepublica-tion peer review.

E．peer review panels are sometimes subject to political and professional pressures that can make their judgments less than impartial.

certainly appoint Lee to be the new head of the arts commission. Lee has wanted that job for a long time, and Drabble owes Lee a lot for his support in the last election. Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

A．Mayor Drabble has no political debt that is both of longer standing than the one she owes to Lee and could as suitable be repaid by an appointment to be the new head of the arts commission.

B．There is no one to whom Mayor Drabble owes a greater political debt for support in the last election than the political debt she owes to Lee.

C．Lee is the only person to whom Mayor Drabble owes a political debt who would be willing to accept an appointment from her as the new head of the arts commission.

D．Whether Lee is qualified to head the arts commission is irrelevant to Mayor Drabble"s decision.

E．The only way that Mayor Drabble can adequately repay her political debt to Lee is by appointing him to head the arts commission.

" is taking hold among the population is to monitor how fast the word or words expressing that particular idea are passing into common usage. Professional opinions of whether or not words can indeed be said to have passed into common usage are available from dictionary editors, who are vitally concerned with this question. The method described above for determining how quickly a new idea is taking hold relies on which one of the following assumptions?

A．Dictionary editors are not professionally interested in words that are only rarely used.

B．Dictionary editors have exact numerical criteria for telling when a word has passed into common usage.

C．For a new idea to take hold, dictionary editors have to include the relevant word or words in their dictionaries.

D．As a word passes into common usage, its meaning does not undergo any severe distortions in the process.

E．Words denoting new ideas tend to be used before the ideas denoted are understood.

risdiction. This tax, therefore, if viewed as tax on income, has the reverse effect of the federal income tax: the lower the income, the higher the annual percentage rate at which the income is taxed. The conclusion above would be properly drawn if which of the following were assumed as a premise?

A．The amount of money citizens spend on products subject to the state tax tends to be equal across income levels.

B．The federal income tax favors citizens with high incomes, whereas the state sales tax favors citizens with low incomes.

C．Citizens with low annual incomes can afford to pay a relatively higher percentage of their incomes in state sales tax, since their federal income tax is relatively low.

D．The lower a state"s sales tax, the more it will tend to redistribute income from the more affluent citizens to the rest of society.

E．Citizens who fail to earn federally taxable income are also exempt from the state sales tax.

ive deep below the Earth s surface, some scientists argue that there are living communities of microorganisms there that have been cut off from surface life for millions of years. These scientists base their argument on the discovery of living microorganisms in samples of material that were taken from holes drilled as deep as 1.74 miles. The scientists argument depends on which of the following assumptions?

A．The microorganisms brought up were of a species that is related to those previously known to science.

B．No holes have been drilled into the Earth" s surface to a distance deeper than 1. 74 miles.

C．The microorganisms did not come from surface soil that came into contact with the drilling equipment.

D．The stratum from which the samples came has been below the surface of the Earth ever since the Earth came into existence.

E．The temperature at the bottom of the holes drilled was not significantly hotter than that of the hottest spots on the Earth"s surface.

al value than lettuce, it follows that kale has more nutritional value than lettuce. Any of the following, if introduced into the argument as an additional premise, makes the argument above logically correct EXCEPT:

A．Collard greens have more nutritional value than kale.

B．Spinach has more nutritional value than lettuce.

C．Spinach has more nutritional value than collard greens.

D．Spinach and collard greens have the same nutritional value.

E．Kale and collard greens have the same nutritional value.

ealthful(ripe fruit, for example)in preference to foods that were not healthful(unripe fruit, for example). However, now that sugar has been refined, it follows that a craving for sweets is no longer beneficial, because refined sugar is not healthful. Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument above?

A．Some foods can be healthful when cooked even if they are not healthful when eaten raw.

B．Some people who crave sweets are more likely to eat a piece of ripened fruit than they are to eat a piece of candy.

C．People who crave sweets are more likely to eat a food that contains refined sugar than a naturally sweet food like ripe fruit.

D．Prehistoric humans probably were not able to distinguish between healthful foods and unhealthful foods without relying on their sense of taste.

E．Some unrefined foodstuffs are no more nutritious than their refined counterparts.

ey in what is now France depicts a number of different animals. One of the animals depicted seems to resemble the chiru, a rare antelope of the Himalayas. Which of the following, if true, best supports the hypothesis that in painting the animal that resembles a chiru the cave artist painted a chiru with which she or he was familiar?

A．There are numerous representations of imaginary animals in cave paintings of similar age.

B．Fossilized remains of a chiru, approximately 16,000 years old, have been found at the northern end of the valley.

C．The cave that contains the depiction of an animal that resembles a chiru contains stylized representations of plant life.

D．Older caves from the same region contain no representations of animals that resemble a chiru.

E．The antlers of the animal in the painting are longer than those of the mature Himalayan chiru.

e discharge of mentally ill persons from hospitals into "community care. " even though it is true that provisions for such community care are for the most part nonexistent. Which of the following, if true, best supports the claim above?

A．The policy of discharging mentally ill persons from hospitals was based on the supposition that their illnesses couldbe controlled by newly developed drugs.

B．Without supervision in a hospital setting those people whose mental illness can be controlled by medication might not actually take prescribed medication.

C．Some community-care programs for mentally ill persons did exist in the 1980" s, but those programs consisted primarily of outpatient clinics.

D．The policy of discharging significant numbers of mentally ill persons from hospitals took effect in the 1960"s.

E．There have always been some people in large cities who have led a homeless existence.