Question 2/41:

Guidebook writer: I have visited hotels throughout the country and have noticed that in those built before 1930 the quality of the original carpentry work is generally superior to that in hotels built afterward. Clearly carpenters working on hotels before 1930 typically worked with more skill, care, and effort than carpenters who have worked on hotels built subsequently.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the guidebook writer’s argument?

Question 3/41:

The average hourly wage of television assemblers in Vernland has long been significantly lower than that in neighboring Borodia. Since Borodia dropped all tariffs on Vernlandian televisions three years ago, the number of televisions sold annually in Borodia has not changed. However, recent statistics show a drop in the number of television assemblers in Borodia. Therefore, updated trade statistics will probably indicate that the number of televisions Borodia imports annually from Vernland has increased.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

Question 4/41: The Quechuans believed that all things participated in both the material level and the mystical level of reality, and many individual Quechuans claimed to have contact with it directly with an ichana (dream) experience.

Question 5/41:

Many scholars have theorized that economic development, particularly industrialization and urbanization, contributes to the growth of participatory democracy; according to this theory, it would seem logical that women would both demand and gain suffrage in ever greater numbers whenever economic development expanded their economic opportunities. However, the economic development theory is inadequate to explain certain historical facts about the implementation of women’s suffrage. For example, why was women’s suffrage, instituted nationally in the United States in 1920, not instituted nationally in Switzerland until the 1970’s? Industrialization was well advanced in both countries by 1920: over 33 percent of American workers were employed in various industries, as compared to 44 percent of Swiss workers. Granted, Switzerland and the United States diverged in the degree to which the expansion of industry coincided with the degree of urbanization: only 29 percent of the Swiss population lived in cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants by 1920. However, urbanization cannot fully explain women’s suffrage. Within the United States prior to 1920, for example, only less urbanized states had granted women suffrage. Similarly, less urbanized countries such as Cambodia and Ghana had voting rights for women long before Switzerland did. It is true that Switzerland’s urbanized cantons (political subdivisions) generally enacted women’s suffrage legislation earlier than did rural cantons. However, these cantons often shared other characteristics—similar linguistic backgrounds and strong leftist parties—that may help to explain this phenomenon.

The passage states which of the following about Switzerland’s urbanized cantons?

Question 6/41:

Many scholars have theorized that economic development, particularly industrialization and urbanization, contributes to the growth of participatory democracy; according to this theory, it would seem logical that women would both demand and gain suffrage in ever greater numbers whenever economic development expanded their economic opportunities. However, the economic development theory is inadequate to explain certain historical facts about the implementation of women’s suffrage. For example, why was women’s suffrage, instituted nationally in the United States in 1920, not instituted nationally in Switzerland until the 1970’s? Industrialization was well advanced in both countries by 1920: over 33 percent of American workers were employed in various industries, as compared to 44 percent of Swiss workers. Granted, Switzerland and the United States diverged in the degree to which the expansion of industry coincided with the degree of urbanization: only 29 percent of the Swiss population lived in cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants by 1920. However, urbanization cannot fully explain women’s suffrage. Within the United States prior to 1920, for example, only less urbanized states had granted women suffrage. Similarly, less urbanized countries such as Cambodia and Ghana had voting rights for women long before Switzerland did. It is true that Switzerland’s urbanized cantons (political subdivisions) generally enacted women’s suffrage legislation earlier than did rural cantons. However, these cantons often shared other characteristics—similar linguistic backgrounds and strong leftist parties—that may help to explain this phenomenon.

The primary purpose of the passage is to

Question 7/41:

Many scholars have theorized that economic development, particularly industrialization and urbanization, contributes to the growth of participatory democracy; according to this theory, it would seem logical that women would both demand and gain suffrage in ever greater numbers whenever economic development expanded their economic opportunities. However, the economic development theory is inadequate to explain certain historical facts about the implementation of women’s suffrage. For example, why was women’s suffrage, instituted nationally in the United States in 1920, not instituted nationally in Switzerland until the 1970’s? Industrialization was well advanced in both countries by 1920: over 33 percent of American workers were employed in various industries, as compared to 44 percent of Swiss workers. Granted, Switzerland and the United States diverged in the degree to which the expansion of industry coincided with the degree of urbanization: only 29 percent of the Swiss population lived in cities of 10,000 or more inhabitants by 1920. However, urbanization cannot fully explain women’s suffrage. Within the United States prior to 1920, for example, only less urbanized states had granted women suffrage. Similarly, less urbanized countries such as Cambodia and Ghana had voting rights for women long before Switzerland did. It is true that Switzerland’s urbanized cantons (political subdivisions) generally enacted women’s suffrage legislation earlier than did rural cantons. However, these cantons often shared other characteristics—similar linguistic backgrounds and strong leftist parties—that may help to explain this phenomenon.

The passage suggests which of the following about urbanization in Switzerland and the United States by 1920?

Question 8/41:

When a new restaurant, Martin’s Cafe, opened in Riverville last year, many people predicted that business at the Wildflower Inn, Riverville’s only other restaurant, would suffer from the competition. Surprisingly, however, in the year since Martin’s Cafe opened, the average number of meals per night served at the Wildflower Inn has increased significantly.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the increase?

Question 9/41:

Behavior science courses should be gaining prominence in business school curricula. Recent theoretical work convincingly shows why behavioral factors such as organizational culture and employee relations are among the few remaining sources of sustainable competitive advantage in modern organizations. Furthermore, empirical evidence demonstrates clear linkages between human resource (HR) practices based in the behavioral sciences and various aspects of a firm’s financial success. Additionally, some of the world’s most successful organizations have made unique HR practices a core element of their overall business strategies.

Yet the behavior sciences are struggling for credibility in many business schools. Surveys show that business students often regard behavioral studies as peripheral to the mainstream business curriculum. This perception can be explained by the fact that business students, hoping to increase their attractiveness to prospective employers, are highly sensitive to business norms and practices, and current business practices have generally been moving away from an emphasis on understanding human behavior and toward more mechanistic organizational models. Furthermore, the status of HR professionals within organizations tends to be lower than that of other executives.

Students’ perceptions would matter less if business schools were not increasingly dependent on external funding—form legislatures, businesses, and private foundations—for survival. Concerned with their institutions’ ability to attract funding, administrators are increasingly targeting low-enrollment courses and degree programs for elimination.

The primary purpose of the passage is to

Question 10/41:

Behavior science courses should be gaining prominence in business school curricula. Recent theoretical work convincingly shows why behavioral factors such as organizational culture and employee relations are among the few remaining sources of sustainable competitive advantage in modern organizations. Furthermore, empirical evidence demonstrates clear linkages between human resource (HR) practices based in the behavioral sciences and various aspects of a firm’s financial success. Additionally, some of the world’s most successful organizations have made unique HR practices a core element of their overall business strategies.

Yet the behavior sciences are struggling for credibility in many business schools. Surveys show that business students often regard behavioral studies as peripheral to the mainstream business curriculum. This perception can be explained by the fact that business students, hoping to increase their attractiveness to prospective employers, are highly sensitive to business norms and practices, and current business practices have generally been moving away from an emphasis on understanding human behavior and toward more mechanistic organizational models. Furthermore, the status of HR professionals within organizations tends to be lower than that of other executives.

Students’ perceptions would matter less if business schools were not increasingly dependent on external funding—form legislatures, businesses, and private foundations—for survival. Concerned with their institutions’ ability to attract funding, administrators are increasingly targeting low-enrollment courses and degree programs for elimination.

The author of the passage mentions “empirical evidence” primarily in order to

Question 11/41:

Behavior science courses should be gaining prominence in business school curricula. Recent theoretical work convincingly shows why behavioral factors such as organizational culture and employee relations are among the few remaining sources of sustainable competitive advantage in modern organizations. Furthermore, empirical evidence demonstrates clear linkages between human resource (HR) practices based in the behavioral sciences and various aspects of a firm’s financial success. Additionally, some of the world’s most successful organizations have made unique HR practices a core element of their overall business strategies.

Yet the behavior sciences are struggling for credibility in many business schools. Surveys show that business students often regard behavioral studies as peripheral to the mainstream business curriculum. This perception can be explained by the fact that business students, hoping to increase their attractiveness to prospective employers, are highly sensitive to business norms and practices, and current business practices have generally been moving away from an emphasis on understanding human behavior and toward more mechanistic organizational models. Furthermore, the status of HR professionals within organizations tends to be lower than that of other executives.

Students’ perceptions would matter less if business schools were not increasingly dependent on external funding—form legislatures, businesses, and private foundations—for survival. Concerned with their institutions’ ability to attract funding, administrators are increasingly targeting low-enrollment courses and degree programs for elimination.

The author of the passage suggests which of the following about HR professionals in business organizations?

Question 12/41:

Behavior science courses should be gaining prominence in business school curricula. Recent theoretical work convincingly shows why behavioral factors such as organizational culture and employee relations are among the few remaining sources of sustainable competitive advantage in modern organizations. Furthermore, empirical evidence demonstrates clear linkages between human resource (HR) practices based in the behavioral sciences and various aspects of a firm’s financial success. Additionally, some of the world’s most successful organizations have made unique HR practices a core element of their overall business strategies.

Yet the behavior sciences are struggling for credibility in many business schools. Surveys show that business students often regard behavioral studies as peripheral to the mainstream business curriculum. This perception can be explained by the fact that business students, hoping to increase their attractiveness to prospective employers, are highly sensitive to business norms and practices, and current business practices have generally been moving away from an emphasis on understanding human behavior and toward more mechanistic organizational models. Furthermore, the status of HR professionals within organizations tends to be lower than that of other executives.

Students’ perceptions would matter less if business schools were not increasingly dependent on external funding—form legislatures, businesses, and private foundations—for survival. Concerned with their institutions’ ability to attract funding, administrators are increasingly targeting low-enrollment courses and degree programs for elimination.

The author of the passage considers each of the following to be a factor that has contributed to the prevailing attitude in business schools toward the behavioral sciences EXCEPT

Question 13/41:

It is true of both men and women that those who marry as young adults live longer than those who never marry. This dose not show that marriage causes people to live longer, since, as compared with other people of the same age, young adults who are about to get married have fewer of the unhealthy habits that can cause a person to have a shorter life, most notably smoking and immoderate drinking of alcohol.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?

Question 15/41:

Lightbox, Inc., owns almost all of the movie theaters in Washington County and has announced plans to double the number of movie screens it has in the county within five years. Yet attendance at Lightbox’s theaters is only just large enough for profitability now and the county’s population is not expected to increase over the next ten years. Clearly, therefore, if there is indeed no increase in population, Lightbox’s new screens are unlikely to prove profitable.

Which of the following, if true about Washington County, most seriously weakens the argument?

Question 16/41:

Maize contains the vitamin niacin, but not in a form the body can absorb. Pellagra is a disease that results from niacin deficiency. When maize was introduced into southern Europe from the Americas in the eighteenth century, it quickly became a dietary staple, and many Europeans who came to subsist primarily on maize developed pellagra. Pellagra was virtually unknown at that time in the Americas, however, even among people who subsisted primarily on maize.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the contrasting incidence of pellagra described above?

Question 19/41:

Historian: In the Drindian Empire, censuses were conducted annually to determine the population of each village. Village census records for the last half of the 1600’s are remarkably complete. This very completeness makes one point stand out; in five different years, villages overwhelmingly reported significant population declines. Tellingly, each of those five years immediately followed an increase in a certain Drindian tax. This tax, which was assessed on villages, was computed by the central government using the annual census figures. Obviously, whenever the tax went up, villages had an especially powerful economic incentive to minimize the number of people they recorded; and concealing the size of a village’s population from government census takers would have been easy. Therefore, it is reasonable to think that the reported declines did not happen.

In the historian’s argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

Question 20/41:

Scientists typically do their most creative work before the age of forty. It is commonly thought that this happens because aging by itself brings about a loss of creative capacity. However, studies show that a disproportionately large number of the scientists who produce highly creative work beyond the age of forty entered their field at an older age than is usual. Since by the age of forty the large majority of scientists have been working in their field for at least fifteen years, the studies’ finding strongly suggests that the real reason why scientists over forty rarely produce highly creative work is not that they have simply aged but rather that they generally have spent too long in a given field.

In the argument given, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

Question 21/41:

In Teruvia, the quantity of rice produced per year is currently just large enough to satisfy domestic demand. Teruvia’s total rice acreage will not be expanded in the foreseeable future, nor will rice yields per acre increase appreciably. Teruvia’s population, however, will be increasing significantly for years to come. Clearly, therefore, Teruvia will soon have to begin importing rice.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

Question 22/41:

Most pre-1990 literature on businesses’ use of information technology(IT)—defined as any form of computer-based information system—focused on spectacular IT successes and reflected a general optimism concerning IT’s potential as a resource for creating competitive advantage. But toward the end of the 1980’s, some economists spoke of a “productivity paradox”: despite huge IT investments, most notably in the service sectors, productivity stagnated. In the retail industry, for example, in which IT had been widely adopted during the 1980’s, productivity (average output per hour) rose at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent between 1973 and 1989, compared with 2.4 percent in the preceding 25-year period. Proponents of IT argued that it takes both time and a critical mass of investment for IT to yield benefits, and some suggested that growth figures for the 1990’s proved these benefits were finally being realized. They also argued that measures of productivity ignore what would have happened without investments in IT—productivity gains might have been even lower. There were even claims that IT had improved the performance of the service sector significantly, although macroeconomic measures of productivity did not reflect the improvement.

But some observers questioned why, if IT had conferred economic value, it did not produce direct competitive advantages for individual firms. Resource-based theory offers an answer, asserting that, in general, firms gain competitive advantages by accumulating resources that are economically valuable, relatively scarce, and not easily replicated. According to a recent study of retail firms, which confirmed that IT has become pervasive and relatively easy to acquire, IT by itself appeared to have conferred little advantage. In fact, though little evidence of any direct effect was found, the frequent negative correlations between IT and performance suggested that IT had probably weakened some firms’ competitive positions. However, firms’ human resources, in and of themselves, did explain improved performance, and some firms gained IT-related advantages by merging IT with complementary resources, particularly human resources. The findings support the notion, founded in resource-based theory, that competitive advantages do not arise from easily replicated resources, no matter how impressive or economically valuable they may be, but from complex, intangible resources.

The passage is primarily concerned with

Question 23/41:

Most pre-1990 literature on businesses’ use of information technology(IT)—defined as any form of computer-based information system—focused on spectacular IT successes and reflected a general optimism concerning IT’s potential as a resource for creating competitive advantage. But toward the end of the 1980’s, some economists spoke of a “productivity paradox”: despite huge IT investments, most notably in the service sectors, productivity stagnated. In the retail industry, for example, in which IT had been widely adopted during the 1980’s, productivity (average output per hour) rose at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent between 1973 and 1989, compared with 2.4 percent in the preceding 25-year period. Proponents of IT argued that it takes both time and a critical mass of investment for IT to yield benefits, and some suggested that growth figures for the 1990’s proved these benefits were finally being realized. They also argued that measures of productivity ignore what would have happened without investments in IT—productivity gains might have been even lower. There were even claims that IT had improved the performance of the service sector significantly, although macroeconomic measures of productivity did not reflect the improvement.

But some observers questioned why, if IT had conferred economic value, it did not produce direct competitive advantages for individual firms. Resource-based theory offers an answer, asserting that, in general, firms gain competitive advantages by accumulating resources that are economically valuable, relatively scarce, and not easily replicated. According to a recent study of retail firms, which confirmed that IT has become pervasive and relatively easy to acquire, IT by itself appeared to have conferred little advantage. In fact, though little evidence of any direct effect was found, the frequent negative correlations between IT and performance suggested that IT had probably weakened some firms’ competitive positions. However, firms’ human resources, in and of themselves, did explain improved performance, and some firms gained IT-related advantages by merging IT with complementary resources, particularly human resources. The findings support the notion, founded in resource-based theory, that competitive advantages do not arise from easily replicated resources, no matter how impressive or economically valuable they may be, but from complex, intangible resources.

The passage suggests that proponents of resource-based theory would be likely to explain IT’s inability to produce direct competitive advantages for individual firms by pointing out that

Question 24/41:

Most pre-1990 literature on businesses’ use of information technology(IT)—defined as any form of computer-based information system—focused on spectacular IT successes and reflected a general optimism concerning IT’s potential as a resource for creating competitive advantage. But toward the end of the 1980’s, some economists spoke of a “productivity paradox”: despite huge IT investments, most notably in the service sectors, productivity stagnated. In the retail industry, for example, in which IT had been widely adopted during the 1980’s, productivity (average output per hour) rose at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent between 1973 and 1989, compared with 2.4 percent in the preceding 25-year period. Proponents of IT argued that it takes both time and a critical mass of investment for IT to yield benefits, and some suggested that growth figures for the 1990’s proved these benefits were finally being realized. They also argued that measures of productivity ignore what would have happened without investments in IT—productivity gains might have been even lower. There were even claims that IT had improved the performance of the service sector significantly, although macroeconomic measures of productivity did not reflect the improvement.

But some observers questioned why, if IT had conferred economic value, it did not produce direct competitive advantages for individual firms. Resource-based theory offers an answer, asserting that, in general, firms gain competitive advantages by accumulating resources that are economically valuable, relatively scarce, and not easily replicated. According to a recent study of retail firms, which confirmed that IT has become pervasive and relatively easy to acquire, IT by itself appeared to have conferred little advantage. In fact, though little evidence of any direct effect was found, the frequent negative correlations between IT and performance suggested that IT had probably weakened some firms’ competitive positions. However, firms’ human resources, in and of themselves, did explain improved performance, and some firms gained IT-related advantages by merging IT with complementary resources, particularly human resources. The findings support the notion, founded in resource-based theory, that competitive advantages do not arise from easily replicated resources, no matter how impressive or economically valuable they may be, but from complex, intangible resources.

The author of the passage discusses productivity in the retail industry in the first paragraph primarily in order to

Question 25/41:

Most pre-1990 literature on businesses’ use of information technology(IT)—defined as any form of computer-based information system—focused on spectacular IT successes and reflected a general optimism concerning IT’s potential as a resource for creating competitive advantage. But toward the end of the 1980’s, some economists spoke of a “productivity paradox”: despite huge IT investments, most notably in the service sectors, productivity stagnated. In the retail industry, for example, in which IT had been widely adopted during the 1980’s, productivity (average output per hour) rose at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent between 1973 and 1989, compared with 2.4 percent in the preceding 25-year period. Proponents of IT argued that it takes both time and a critical mass of investment for IT to yield benefits, and some suggested that growth figures for the 1990’s proved these benefits were finally being realized. They also argued that measures of productivity ignore what would have happened without investments in IT—productivity gains might have been even lower. There were even claims that IT had improved the performance of the service sector significantly, although macroeconomic measures of productivity did not reflect the improvement.

But some observers questioned why, if IT had conferred economic value, it did not produce direct competitive advantages for individual firms. Resource-based theory offers an answer, asserting that, in general, firms gain competitive advantages by accumulating resources that are economically valuable, relatively scarce, and not easily replicated. According to a recent study of retail firms, which confirmed that IT has become pervasive and relatively easy to acquire, IT by itself appeared to have conferred little advantage. In fact, though little evidence of any direct effect was found, the frequent negative correlations between IT and performance suggested that IT had probably weakened some firms’ competitive positions. However, firms’ human resources, in and of themselves, did explain improved performance, and some firms gained IT-related advantages by merging IT with complementary resources, particularly human resources. The findings support the notion, founded in resource-based theory, that competitive advantages do not arise from easily replicated resources, no matter how impressive or economically valuable they may be, but from complex, intangible resources.

According to the passage, most pre-1990 literature on businesses’ use of IT included which of the following?

Question 26/41:

Healthy lungs produce a natural antibiotic that protects them from infection by routinely killing harmful bacteria on airway surfaces. People with cystic fibrosis, however, are unable to fight off such bacteria, even though their lungs produce normal amounts of the antibiotic. The fluid on airway surfaces in the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis has an abnormally high salt concentration; accordingly, scientists hypothesize that the high salt concentration is what makes the antibiotic ineffective.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the scientists’ hypothesis?

Question 27/41: In April 1997, Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted an all-day White House scientific conference on new findings that indicates a child’s acquiring language, thinking, and emotional skills as an active process that may be largely completed before age three.

Question 28/41:

Wind farms, which generate electricity using arrays of thousands of wind-powered turbines, require vast expanses of open land. County X and County Y have similar terrain, but the population density of County X is significantly higher than that of County Y. Therefore, a wind farm proposed for one of the two counties should be built in County Y rather than in County X.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the planner’s argument?

Question 29/41:

Over the past five years, the price gap between name-brand cereals and less expensive store-brand cereals has become so wide that consumers have been switching increasingly to store brands despite the name brands’ reputation for better quality. To attract these consumers back, several manufacturers of name-brand cereals plan to narrow the price gap between their cereals and store brands to less than what it was five years ago.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously calls into question the likelihood that the manufacturers’ plan will succeed in attracting back a large percentage of consumers who have switched to store brands?

Question 30/41: Which of the following most logically completes the argument?

The irradiation of food kills bacteria and thus retards spoilage. However, it also lowers the nutritional value of many foods. For example, irradiation destroys a significant percentage of whatever vitamin B1 a food may contain. Proponents of irradiation point out that irradiation is no worse in this respect than cooking. However, this fact is either beside the point, since much irradiated food is eaten raw, or else misleading, since _______.

Question 31/41:

Studies in restaurants show that the tips left by customers who pay their bill in cash tend to be larger when the bill is presented on a tray that bears a credit-card logo. Consumer psychologists hypothesize that simply seeing a credit-card logo makes many credit-card holders willing to spend more because it reminds them that their spending power exceeds the cash they have immediately available.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the psychologists’ interpretation of the studies?

Question 32/41：

From 1980 to 1989, total consumption of fish in the country of Jurania increased by 4.5 percent, and total consumption of poultry products there increased by 9.0 percent. During the same period, the population of Jurania increased by 6 percent, in part due to immigration to Jurania from other countries in the region.

If the statements above are true, which of the following must also be true on the basis of them?

Question 33/41:

Wolves generally avoid human settlements. For this reason, domestic sheep, though essentially easy prey for wolves, are not usually attacked by them. In Hylantia prior to 1910, farmers nevertheless lost considerable numbers of sheep to wolves each year. Attributing this to the large number for wolves, in 1910 the government began offering rewards to hunters for killing wolves. From 1910 to 1915, large numbers of wolves were killed. Yet wolf attacks on sheep increased significantly.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the increase in wolf attacks on sheep?

Question 34/41: Many entomologists say that campaigns to eradicate the fire ant in the United States have failed because the chemicals that were used were effective only in wiping out the ant’s natural enemies, which made it easier for them to spread.

Question 35/41:

Even more than mountainside slides of mud or snow, naturally occurring forest fires promote the survival of aspen trees. Aspens’ need for fire may seem illogical since aspens are particularly vulnerable to fires; whereas the bark of most trees consists of dead cells, the aspen’s bark is a living, functioning tissue that—along with the rest of the tree—succumbs quickly to fire.

The explanation is that each aspen, while appearing to exist separately as a single tree, is in fact only the stem or shoot of a far larger organism. A group of thousands of aspens can actually constitute a single organism, called a clone, that shares an interconnected root system and a unique set of genes. Thus, when one aspen—a single stem—dies, the entire clone is affected. While alive, a stem sends hormones into the root system to suppress formation of further stems. But when the stem dies, its hormone signal also ceases. If a clone loses many stems simultaneously, the resulting hormonal imbalance triggers a huge increase in new, rapidly growing shoots that can outnumber the ones destroyed. An aspen grove needs to experience fire or some other disturbance regularly, or it will fail to regenerate and spread. Instead, coniferous trees will invade the aspen grove’s borders and increasingly block out sunlight needed by the aspens.

The primary purpose of the passage is to explain the

Question 36/41:

Even more than mountainside slides of mud or snow, naturally occurring forest fires promote the survival of aspen trees. Aspens’ need for fire may seem illogical since aspens are particularly vulnerable to fires; whereas the bark of most trees consists of dead cells, the aspen’s bark is a living, functioning tissue that—along with the rest of the tree—succumbs quickly to fire.

The explanation is that each aspen, while appearing to exist separately as a single tree, is in fact only the stem or shoot of a far larger organism. A group of thousands of aspens can actually constitute a single organism, called a clone, that shares an interconnected root system and a unique set of genes. Thus, when one aspen—a single stem—dies, the entire clone is affected. While alive, a stem sends hormones into the root system to suppress formation of further stems. But when the stem dies, its hormone signal also ceases. If a clone loses many stems simultaneously, the resulting hormonal imbalance triggers a huge increase in new, rapidly growing shoots that can outnumber the ones destroyed. An aspen grove needs to experience fire or some other disturbance regularly, or it will fail to regenerate and spread. Instead, coniferous trees will invade the aspen grove’s borders and increasingly block out sunlight needed by the aspens.

It can be inferred from the passage that when aspen groves experience a “disturbance” such a disturbance

Question 37/41:

Even more than mountainside slides of mud or snow, naturally occurring forest fires promote the survival of aspen trees. Aspens’ need for fire may seem illogical since aspens are particularly vulnerable to fires; whereas the bark of most trees consists of dead cells, the aspen’s bark is a living, functioning tissue that—along with the rest of the tree—succumbs quickly to fire.

The explanation is that each aspen, while appearing to exist separately as a single tree, is in fact only the stem or shoot of a far larger organism. A group of thousands of aspens can actually constitute a single organism, called a clone, that shares an interconnected root system and a unique set of genes. Thus, when one aspen—a single stem—dies, the entire clone is affected. While alive, a stem sends hormones into the root system to suppress formation of further stems. But when the stem dies, its hormone signal also ceases. If a clone loses many stems simultaneously, the resulting hormonal imbalance triggers a huge increase in new, rapidly growing shoots that can outnumber the ones destroyed. An aspen grove needs to experience fire or some other disturbance regularly, or it will fail to regenerate and spread. Instead, coniferous trees will invade the aspen grove’s borders and increasingly block out sunlight needed by the aspens.

The author of the passage refers to “the bark of most trees” most likely in order to emphasize the

Question 38/41:

Nitrogen dioxide is a pollutant emitted by automobiles. Catalytic converters, devices designed to reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions, have been required in all new cars in Donia since 1993, and as a result, nitrogen dioxide emissions have been significantly reduced throughout most of the country. Yet although the proportion of new cars in Donia’s capital city has always been comparatively high, nitrogen dioxide emissions there have showed only an insignificant decline since 1993.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the insignificant decline in nitrogen dioxide emissions in Donia’s capital city?

Question 39/41: In 2000, a mere two dozen products accounted for half the increase in spending on prescription drugs, a phenomenon that is explained not just because of more expensive drugs but by the fact that doctors are writing many more prescriptions for higher-cost drugs.

Question 40/41:

Community activist: If Morganville wants to keep its central shopping district healthy, it should prevent the opening of a huge SaveAll discount department store on the outskirts of Morganville. Records from other small towns show that whenever SaveAll has opened a store outside the central shopping district of a small town, within five years the town has experienced the bankruptcies of more than a quarter of the stores in the shopping district.

The answer to which of the following would be most useful for evaluating the community activist’s reasoning?

Question 41/41: A leading figure in the Scottish enlightenment, Adam Smith’s two major books are to democratic capitalism what Marx’s Das Kapital is to socialism.

Question 41/41: A leading figure in the Scottish enlightenment, Adam Smith’s two major books are to democratic capitalism what Marx’s Das Kapital is to socialism.

Based on records from ancient Athens, each year young Athenian women collaborated to weave a new woolen robe that they used to dress a statue of the goddess Athena and that this robe depicted scenes of a battle between Zeus, Athena’s father, and giants.

For desert rats and camels, the problem is conservation of water in an environment where standing water is nonexistent, temperature is high, and humidity is low. Despite these handicaps, desert rats are able to maintain the osmotic pressure of their blood, as well as their total body water content, at approximately the same levels as other rats. one countermeasure is behavioral:these rats stay in burrows during ‘the hot part of the day, thus avoiding loss of fluid through panting or sweating, which are regulatory mechanisms for maintaining internal body temperature by evaporative cooling. Also, desert rats’ kidneys can excrete a urine having twice as high a salt content as sea water.

Camels, on the other hand, rely more on simple endurance. They cannot store water, and their reliance on an entirely unexceptional kidney results in a rate of water loss through renal function significantly higher than that of desert rats. As a result, camels must tolerate losses In Body water of up to thirty percent of their body weight. Nevertheless, camels do rely on a special mechanism to keep water loss within a tolerable range:by sweating and panting only when their body temperature exceeds that which would kill a human, they conserve internal water.

Marine vertebrates experience difficulty with their water balance because though there is no shortage of seawater to drink, they must drink a lot of it to maintain their internal fluid balance. But the excess salts from the seawater must be discharged somehow, and the kidneys of most marine vertebrates are unable to excrete a urine in which the salts are more concentrated than in seawater. Most of these animals have special salt-secreting organs outside the kidney that enable them to eliminate excess salt.

Question 1/12: According to the passage,the camel maintains internal fluid balance in which of the following ways?
I. By behavioral avoidance of exposure to conditions that lead to fluid loss
II. By an ability to tolerate high body temperatures
III. By reliance 0n stored internal fluid supplies

For desert rats and camels, the problem is conservation of water in an environment where standing water is nonexistent, temperature is high, and humidity is low. Despite these handicaps, desert rats are able to maintain the osmotic pressure of their blood, as well as their total body water content, at approximately the same levels as other rats. one countermeasure is behavioral:these rats stay in burrows during ‘the hot part of the day, thus avoiding loss of fluid through panting or sweating, which are regulatory mechanisms for maintaining internal body temperature by evaporative cooling. Also, desert rats’ kidneys can excrete a urine having twice as high a salt content as sea water.

Camels, on the other hand, rely more on simple endurance. They cannot store water, and their reliance on an entirely unexceptional kidney results in a rate of water loss through renal function significantly higher than that of desert rats. As a result, camels must tolerate losses In Body water of up to thirty percent of their body weight. Nevertheless, camels do rely on a special mechanism to keep water loss within a tolerable range:by sweating and panting only when their body temperature exceeds that which would kill a human, they conserve internal water.

Marine vertebrates experience difficulty with their water balance because though there is no shortage of seawater to drink, they must drink a lot of it to maintain their internal fluid balance. But the excess salts from the seawater must be discharged somehow, and the kidneys of most marine vertebrates are unable to excrete a urine in which the salts are more concentrated than in seawater. Most of these animals have special salt-secreting organs outside the kidney that enable them to eliminate excess salt.

Question 2/12: It can the be inferred from the passage that some mechanisms that regulate intemal body temperature, like sweating and panting, can lead to which of the following?

For desert rats and camels, the problem is conservation of water in an environment where standing water is nonexistent, temperature is high, and humidity is low. Despite these handicaps, desert rats are able to maintain the osmotic pressure of their blood, as well as their total body water content, at approximately the same levels as other rats. one countermeasure is behavioral:these rats stay in burrows during ‘the hot part of the day, thus avoiding loss of fluid through panting or sweating, which are regulatory mechanisms for maintaining internal body temperature by evaporative cooling. Also, desert rats’ kidneys can excrete a urine having twice as high a salt content as sea water.

Camels, on the other hand, rely more on simple endurance. They cannot store water, and their reliance on an entirely unexceptional kidney results in a rate of water loss through renal function significantly higher than that of desert rats. As a result, camels must tolerate losses In Body water of up to thirty percent of their body weight. Nevertheless, camels do rely on a special mechanism to keep water loss within a tolerable range:by sweating and panting only when their body temperature exceeds that which would kill a human, they conserve internal water.

Marine vertebrates experience difficulty with their water balance because though there is no shortage of seawater to drink, they must drink a lot of it to maintain their internal fluid balance. But the excess salts from the seawater must be discharged somehow, and the kidneys of most marine vertebrates are unable to excrete a urine in which the salts are more concentrated than in seawater. Most of these animals have special salt-secreting organs outside the kidney that enable them to eliminate excess salt.

Question 3/12: It can be inferred from the passage that the author characterizes the camel's kidney as ”entirely unexceptional” primarily to emphasize that it

The new school of political history that emerged in the 1960''s and 1970''s sought to go beyond the traditional focus of political historians on leaders and government institutions by examining directly the political practices of ordinary citizens. Like the old approach, however, this new approach excluded women. The very techniques these historians used to uncover mass political behavior in the nineteenth century United States—quantitative analyses of election returns, for example--were useless in analyzing the political activities of women, who were denied the vote until 1920.

By redefining political activity,” historian Paula Baker has developed a political history that includes women. She concludes that among ordinary citizens, political activism by women in the nineteenth century prefigured trends in twentieth century politics. Defining” politics” as “ any action taken to affect the course of behavior government or of the community, “ Baker concludes that, while voting and holding office were restricted to men, women in the nineteenth century organized themselves into societies committed to social issues such as temperance and poverty. In other words, Baker contends, women activists were early practitioners of nonpartisan, issue oriented politics and thus were more interested in enlisting lawmakers, regardless of their party affiliation, on behalf of certain issues than in ensuring that one party another won an election. In the twentieth century, more men drew closer to women's ideas about politics and took up modes of issue oriented politics that Baker sees women as having pioneered.

Question 4/12: The primary purpose of the passage is to

The new school of political history that emerged in the 1960''s and 1970''s sought to go beyond the traditional focus of political historians on leaders and government institutions by examining directly the political practices of ordinary citizens. Like the old approach, however, this new approach excluded women. The very techniques these historians used to uncover mass political behavior in the nineteenth century United States—quantitative analyses of election returns, for example--were useless in analyzing the political activities of women, who were denied the vote until 1920.

By redefining political activity,” historian Paula Baker has developed a political history that includes women. She concludes that among ordinary citizens, political activism by women in the nineteenth century prefigured trends in twentieth century politics. Defining” politics” as “ any action taken to affect the course of behavior government or of the community, “ Baker concludes that, while voting and holding office were restricted to men, women in the nineteenth century organized themselves into societies committed to social issues such as temperance and poverty. In other words, Baker contends, women activists were early practitioners of nonpartisan, issue oriented politics and thus were more interested in enlisting lawmakers, regardless of their party affiliation, on behalf of certain issues than in ensuring that one party another won an election. In the twentieth century, more men drew closer to women's ideas about politics and took up modes of issue oriented politics that Baker sees women as having pioneered.

Question 5/12: The passage suggests which of the following concerning the techniques used by the new political historians described in the first paragraph of the passage?

The new school of political history that emerged in the 1960''s and 1970''s sought to go beyond the traditional focus of political historians on leaders and government institutions by examining directly the political practices of ordinary citizens. Like the old approach, however, this new approach excluded women. The very techniques these historians used to uncover mass political behavior in the nineteenth century United States—quantitative analyses of election returns, for example--were useless in analyzing the political activities of women, who were denied the vote until 1920.

By redefining political activity,” historian Paula Baker has developed a political history that includes women. She concludes that among ordinary citizens, political activism by women in the nineteenth century prefigured trends in twentieth century politics. Defining” politics” as “ any action taken to affect the course of behavior government or of the community, “ Baker concludes that, while voting and holding office were restricted to men, women in the nineteenth century organized themselves into societies committed to social issues such as temperance and poverty. In other words, Baker contends, women activists were early practitioners of nonpartisan, issue oriented politics and thus were more interested in enlisting lawmakers, regardless of their party affiliation, on behalf of certain issues than in ensuring that one party another won an election. In the twentieth century, more men drew closer to women's ideas about politics and took up modes of issue oriented politics that Baker sees women as having pioneered.

Question 6/12: It can be inferred that the author of the passage quotes Baker directly in the second paragraph primarily in order to

Although genetic mutations in bacteria and viruses ca n lead to epidemics, some epidemics are caused by bacteria and viruses that have undergone no significant genetic change. In analyzing the latter, scientists have discovered the importance of social and ecological factors to epidemics. Poliomyelitis, for example, emerged as an epidemic in the United States in the twentieth century by then, modern sanitation was able to delay exposure to polio Until adolescence or adulthood, at which time polio infection produced paralysis. Previously, infection had occurred during infancy, when it typically 9rovided lifelong immunity without paralysis. Thus, the hygiene that helped prevent typhoid epidemics indirectly fostered a paralytic polio epidemic. Another example is lyme disease, which is caused by bacteria that are transmitted by deer ticks. It occurred only sporadically during the late nineteenth century but has recently become prevalent in parts of the United States, largely due to an increase in the deer population that occurred simultaneously with the growth of the suburbs and increased outdoor recreational activities in the deer's habitat. Similarly, an outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever became an epidemic in Asia in the 1950's because of ecological changes that caused Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits the dengue virus, to proliferate. The stage is now set in the United States for a dengue epidemic because of the inadvertent introduction and wide dissemination of another mosquito, Aedes albopictus.

Question 7/12: Which of the following can most reasonably be concluded about the mosquito Aedes albopictus on the basis of information given in the passage?

Although genetic mutations in bacteria and viruses ca n lead to epidemics, some epidemics are caused by bacteria and viruses that have undergone no significant genetic change. In analyzing the latter, scientists have discovered the importance of social and ecological factors to epidemics. Poliomyelitis, for example, emerged as an epidemic in the United States in the twentieth century by then, modern sanitation was able to delay exposure to polio Until adolescence or adulthood, at which time polio infection produced paralysis. Previously, infection had occurred during infancy, when it typically 9rovided lifelong immunity without paralysis. Thus, the hygiene that helped prevent typhoid epidemics indirectly fostered a paralytic polio epidemic. Another example is lyme disease, which is caused by bacteria that are transmitted by deer ticks. It occurred only sporadically during the late nineteenth century but has recently become prevalent in parts of the United States, largely due to an increase in the deer population that occurred simultaneously with the growth of the suburbs and increased outdoor recreational activities in the deer's habitat. Similarly, an outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever became an epidemic in Asia in the 1950's because of ecological changes that caused Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits the dengue virus, to proliferate. The stage is now set in the United States for a dengue epidemic because of the inadvertent introduction and wide dissemination of another mosquito, Aedes albopictus.

Question 8/12: According to the passage,the outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever in the 1950's occurred for which of the following reasons?

Although genetic mutations in bacteria and viruses ca n lead to epidemics, some epidemics are caused by bacteria and viruses that have undergone no significant genetic change. In analyzing the latter, scientists have discovered the importance of social and ecological factors to epidemics. Poliomyelitis, for example, emerged as an epidemic in the United States in the twentieth century by then, modern sanitation was able to delay exposure to polio Until adolescence or adulthood, at which time polio infection produced paralysis. Previously, infection had occurred during infancy, when it typically 9rovided lifelong immunity without paralysis. Thus, the hygiene that helped prevent typhoid epidemics indirectly fostered a paralytic polio epidemic. Another example is lyme disease, which is caused by bacteria that are transmitted by deer ticks. It occurred only sporadically during the late nineteenth century but has recently become prevalent in parts of the United States, largely due to an increase in the deer population that occurred simultaneously with the growth of the suburbs and increased outdoor recreational activities in the deer's habitat. Similarly, an outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever became an epidemic in Asia in the 1950's because of ecological changes that caused Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits the dengue virus, to proliferate. The stage is now set in the United States for a dengue epidemic because of the inadvertent introduction and wide dissemination of another mosquito, Aedes albopictus.

Question 9/12: It can be inferred from the passage that Lyme disease has become prevalent in parts of the United States because of which of the following?

Although genetic mutations in bacteria and viruses ca n lead to epidemics, some epidemics are caused by bacteria and viruses that have undergone no significant genetic change. In analyzing the latter, scientists have discovered the importance of social and ecological factors to epidemics. Poliomyelitis, for example, emerged as an epidemic in the United States in the twentieth century by then, modern sanitation was able to delay exposure to polio Until adolescence or adulthood, at which time polio infection produced paralysis. Previously, infection had occurred during infancy, when it typically 9rovided lifelong immunity without paralysis. Thus, the hygiene that helped prevent typhoid epidemics indirectly fostered a paralytic polio epidemic. Another example is lyme disease, which is caused by bacteria that are transmitted by deer ticks. It occurred only sporadically during the late nineteenth century but has recently become prevalent in parts of the United States, largely due to an increase in the deer population that occurred simultaneously with the growth of the suburbs and increased outdoor recreational activities in the deer's habitat. Similarly, an outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever became an epidemic in Asia in the 1950's because of ecological changes that caused Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits the dengue virus, to proliferate. The stage is now set in the United States for a dengue epidemic because of the inadvertent introduction and wide dissemination of another mosquito, Aedes albopictus.

Question 10/12: Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the author's assertion about the cause of the Lyme disease outbreak in the United States?

Although genetic mutations in bacteria and viruses ca n lead to epidemics, some epidemics are caused by bacteria and viruses that have undergone no significant genetic change. In analyzing the latter, scientists have discovered the importance of social and ecological factors to epidemics. Poliomyelitis, for example, emerged as an epidemic in the United States in the twentieth century by then, modern sanitation was able to delay exposure to polio Until adolescence or adulthood, at which time polio infection produced paralysis. Previously, infection had occurred during infancy, when it typically 9rovided lifelong immunity without paralysis. Thus, the hygiene that helped prevent typhoid epidemics indirectly fostered a paralytic polio epidemic. Another example is lyme disease, which is caused by bacteria that are transmitted by deer ticks. It occurred only sporadically during the late nineteenth century but has recently become prevalent in parts of the United States, largely due to an increase in the deer population that occurred simultaneously with the growth of the suburbs and increased outdoor recreational activities in the deer's habitat. Similarly, an outbreak of dengue hemorrhagic fever became an epidemic in Asia in the 1950's because of ecological changes that caused Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that transmits the dengue virus, to proliferate. The stage is now set in the United States for a dengue epidemic because of the inadvertent introduction and wide dissemination of another mosquito, Aedes albopictus.

Question 11/12: Which of the following best describes the organization of the passage?

Homeostasis, an animal's maintenance of certain internal variables within an acceptable range, particularly in extreme physical environments, has long interested biologists. The desert rat and the camel in the most water-deprived environments, and marine vertebrates in an all-water environment, encounter the same regulatory problem:maintaining adequate Internal fluid balance. For desert rats and camels, the problem is conservation of water in an environment where standing water is nonexistent, temperature is high, and humidity is low. Despite these handicaps, desert rats are able to maintain the osmotic pressure of their blood, as well as their total body water content, at approximately the same levels as other rats. one countermeasure is behavioral:these rats stay in burrows during ‘the hot part of the day, thus avoiding loss of fluid through panting or sweating, which are regulatory mechanisms for maintaining internal body temperature by evaporative cooling. Also, desert rats’ kidneys can excrete a urine having twice as high a salt content as sea water. Camels, on the other hand, rely more on simple endurance. They cannot store water, and their reliance on an entirely unexceptional kidney results in a rate of water loss through renal function significantly higher than that of desert rats. As a result, camels must tolerate losses In Body water of up to thirty percent of their body weight. Nevertheless, camels do rely on a special mechanism to keep water loss within a tolerable range:by sweating and panting only when their body temperature exceeds that which would kill a human, they conserve internal water. Marine vertebrates experience difficulty with their water balance because though there is no shortage of seawater to drink, they must drink a lot of it to maintain their internal fluid balance. But the excess salts from the seawater must be discharged somehow, and the kidneys of most marine vertebrates are unable to excrete a urine in which the salts are more concentrated than in seawater. Most of these animals have special salt-secreting organs outside the kidney that enable them to eliminate excess salt.

Question 12/12: Which of the following most accurately states the purpose of the passage?

Question 1/37: If k is negative, which of the following must also be negative?

Question 2/37: On Saturday morning, Malachi will begin a camping vacation and he will return home at the end of the first day on which it rains. If on the first three days of the vacation the probability of rain on each day is 0.2, what is the probability that Malachi will return home at the end of the day on the following Monday?

Question 3/37: Each of the 45 boxes on shelf J weighs less than each of the 44 boxes on shelf K. What is the median weight of the 89 boxes on these shelves?
(1) The heaviest box on shelf J weighs 15 pounds.
(2) The lightest box on shelf K weighs 20 pounds.

Question 4/37: What is the total value of Company H’s stock?
(1) Investor P owns 38% of the shares of Company H’s total stock.
(2) The total value of Investor Q’s shares of Company H’s stock is 16,000.

Question 5/37: If (y+3)(y-1) – (y-2)(y-1)=r(y-1), what is the value of y ?
(1) r² = 25
(2) r = 5

Question 6/37: If x and k are integers and (12^x)(4^2x+1)=(2^k)(3²), what is the value of k ?

Question 7/37: A thin piece of wire 40 meters long is cut into two pieces. One piece is used to form a circle with radius r, and the other is used to form a square. No wire is left over. Which of the following represents the total area, in square meters, of the circular and the square regions in terms of r ?

Question 8/37: If r is a constant and a_n = r*n for all positive integers n, for how many values of n is a_n<100?
(1) a₅₀=500
(2) a₁₀₀+a₁₀₅=2,050

Question 9/37: If the length of a certain rectangle is 2 greater than the width of the rectangle, what is the perimeter of the rectangle?
(1) The length of each diagonal of the rectangle is 10.
(2) The area of the rectangular region is 48.

Question 10/37: A certain dealership has a number of cars to be sold by its salespeople. How many cars are to be sold?
(1) If each of the salespeople sales 4 of the cars, 23 cars will remain unsold.
(2) If each of the salespeople sales 6 of the cars, 5 cars will remain unsold.

Question 11/37: A certain farmer pays $30 per acre per month to rent farmland. How much does the farmer pay per month to rent a rectangular plot of farmland that is 360 feet by 605 feet? (43,560 square feet =1 acre)

Question 12/37: How many seconds will it take for a car that is traveling at a constant rate of 45 miles per hour to travel a distance of 220 yards? (1 mile =1,760 yards)

Question 13/37: If n and k are positive integers, is n/k an even integer?
(1) n is divisible by 8.
(2) k is divisible by 4.

Question 14/37: If n is a positive integer and r is the remainder when (n-1)(n+1) is divided by 24, what is the value of r ?
(1) 2 is not a factor of n.
(2) 3 is not a factor of n.

Question 15/37:

The table above shows the number of days worked by a certain sales representative in each of three months last year. If the number of sales calls that the representative made each month was proportional to the number of days worked in that month and if the representative made a total of 168 sales calls in the three months shown, how many sales calls did the representative make in August?

Question 16/37:

In the triangle above, is x > 90 ?
(1) a² + b² < 15
(2) c > 4

Question 17/37: On a recent trip, Mary drove 50 miles. What was the average speed at which she drove the 50 miles?
(1) She drove 30 miles at an average speed of 60 miles per hour and then drove the remaining 20 miles at an average speed of 50 miles per hour.
(2) She drove a total of 54 minutes.

Question 18/37: If a company allocates 15 percent of its budget to advertising, 10 percent to capital improvements, and 55 percent to salaries, what fraction of its budget remains for other allocations?

Question 19/37: If –1 < h < 0, which of the following has the greatest value?

Question 20/37: A glass was filled with 10 ounces of water, and 0.01 ounce of the water evaporated each day during a twenty-day period. What percent of the original amount of water evaporated during this period?

Question 21/37: In the xy-plane, what is the slope of the line with equation 3x+7y=9?

Question 22/30: (n-x) + (n-y) + (n-c) + (n-k)
What is the value of the expression above?
(1) The average (arithmetic mean) of x, y, c, and k is n.
(2) x, y, c, and k are consecutive integers.

Question 23/37: If f is the function defined for all k by f(k)=k⁵/16, what is f(2k) in terms of f(k)?

Question 24/37: If x and y are integers and x>0, is y>0?
(1) 7x – 2y > 0
(2) -y < x

Question 25/37: Each week a certain salesman is made a fixed amount equal to $300 plus a commission equal to 5 percent of the amount of these sales that week over $1,000. What is the total amount the salesman was paid last week?
(1) The total amount the salesman was paid last week is equal to 10 percent of the amount of these sales last week.
(2) The salesman’s sales last week total $5,000.

Question 26/37:

Question 26/37:

In the rectangular solid above, the three sides shown have areas 12,15, and 20, respectively. What is the volume of the solid?

Question 27/37: If S is a set of ten consecutive integers, is the integer 5∈S?
(1) The integer –3 is in S.
(2) The integer 4 is in S.

Question 28/37: If Line k in the xy-plane has equation y = mx +b, where m and b are constants, what is the slope of k ?
(1) k is parallel to the line with equation y = (1-m)x + b + 1.
(2) k intersects the line with equation y = 2x + 3 at the point (2,7).

Question 29/37:In June 1989, what was the ratio of the number of sales transactions made by Salesperson X to the number of sales transactions made by Salesperson Y?
(1) In June 1989, Salesperson X made 50 percent more sales transactions than Salesperson Y did in May 1989.
(2) In June 1989, Salesperson Y made 25 percent more sales transactions than in May 1989.

Question 30/37: If M is the least common multiple of 90,196, and 300, which of the following is NOT a factor of M ?

Question 31/37: If k/60125 = 0.001, what is the units digit of k ?

Question 32/37: A family-size box of cereal contains more cereal and costs more than the regular-size box of cereal. What is the cost per ounce of the family-size box of cereal?
(1) The family-size box of cereal contains 10 ounces more than the regular-size box of cereal.
(2) The family-size box of cereal costs 5.40.

Question 33/37: A certain roller coaster has 3 cars, and a passenger is equally likely to ride in any 1 of the 3 cars each time that passenger rides the roller coaster. If a certain passenger is to ride the roller coaster 3 times, what is the probability that the passenger will ride in each of the 3 cars?

Question 34/37: If x and y are positive, is 4x > 3y?
(1) x > y-x
(2) x/y < 1

Question 35/37: A total of $60,000 was invested for one year. But of this amount earned simple annual interest at the rate of x percent per year, and the rest earned simple annual interest at the rate of y percent per year. If the total interest earned by the $60,000 for that year was $4,080, what is the value of x?
(1) x=(3/4)y
(2) The ratio of the amount that earned interest at the rate of x percent per year to the amount that earned interest at the rate of y percent per year was 3 to 2.

Question 36/37: If n is the product of the integers from1 to 20 inclusive, what is the greatest integer k for which 2^k is a factor of n?

Question 37/37: A circular mat with diameter 20 inches is placed on a square tabletop, each of whose sides is 24 inches long. Which of the following is closest to the fraction of the tabletop covered by the mat?