NO.106

NO.107 Home insurance premiums are typically set after an appraiser assigns an official assessed value.
Reassessments should be frequent in order to remove distortions that arise when property value changes at differential rates. In actual fact, however, properties are reassessed only when they stand to benefit the insurance company. In other words, a reassessment takes place when the most likely outcome is in increase in insurance premiums to the homeowner.
Which of the following, if true, describes a situation in which a reassessment should occur but in unlikely to do so?

NO.108 Reviewing historical data, medical researchers in California found that counties with the largest number of television sets per capita have had the lowest incidence of a serious brain disease, mosquito-borne encephalitis. The researchers have concluded that people in these counties stay indoors more and thus avoid exposure to the disease.
The researchers’ conclusion would be most strengthened if which of the following were true?

NO.109 The greatest failure of modern American society is its rejection of the extended family. It is no wonder our society is so violent and so many Americans feel a deep sense of isolation and overwhelming stress.
This argument is based on all of the following assumptions EXCEPT

NO.110 Since the mayor’s publicity campaign for Greenville’s bus service began six months ago, morning automobile traffic into the midtown area of the city has decreased seven percent. During the same period, there has been an equivalent rise in the number of persons riding buses into the midtown area. Obviously, the mayor’s publicity campaign has convinced many people to leave their cars at home and ride the bus to work.
Which of the following, if true, casts the most serious doubt on the conclusion drawn above?

NO.111 Electric boats have eliminated the noise pollution that conventional powerboats made and reduce the loathsome discharges of oil that foul American rivers and lakes, threatening fish and bird life.

NO.112 Originally, the bill for Quon’s mea! was $11.88, which included an 8% tax on the cost of the meal. Quon presented a discount coupon for 25% off the cost of his meal.
Quon’s final bill was the discounted cost of the meal plus the 8% tax on the discounted cost of the meal. How much was Quon’s final bill?

NO.113 The exhibition of ancient Egyptian funerary art – imposing statues, intricately painted coffins, and numerous accoutrements, drew hundreds of people each day, equivalent to the number of visitors to last year’s Impressionist show.

NO.114 Even those residents who had not been born in the region, nor were their ancestors, had become fully integrated into the local community.

NO.115 The country of Maravia has severe air pollution, 80 percent of which is caused by the exhaust fumes of cars. In order to reduce the number of cars on the road, the government is raising taxes on the cost of buying and running a car by 20 percent. This tax increase, therefore, will significantly reduce air pollution in Maravia.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

NO.116 In Spartans territory, archaeologists discovered charred bone fragments dating back 1 million years.
Analysis of the fragments, which came from a variety of animals, showed that they had been heated to temperatures no higher than those produced in experimental campfires made from branches of white stinkwood, the most common tree around Spartans.
Which of the following, if true, would, together with the information above, provide the best basis for the claim that the charred bone fragments are evidence of the use of fire by early hominids?

NO.117 A certain truck averages 10 miles per gallon when driven in the city and 25 miles per gallon when driven on the highway. According to these rates, which of the following is closest to the number of miles per gallon that the truck averages when it is driven 20 miles in the city and 30 miles on the highway?

NO.118 The color red has been shown to induce greater aggression in people than the color blue. Researchers conducted a study to determine whether such colorinduced aggression could influence the amount that consumers were willing to pay for an identical product in online auction and online negotiation scenarios.
The researchers photographed a single item against each of four background colors: blue, gray, white, and red. Using a computer, each participant in the study viewed the item against exactly one of the four background colors. Half of the participants were told the item was up for auction and were asked to submit their highest bid for the item. The other half of the participants were told to negotiate a price with the seller and were asked to offer the highest amount that they would be willing to pay for the item.
The researchers expected that participants who viewed the red background would typically behave more aggressively than those who viewed the blue background, Among the auction group, the researchers hypothesized that more aggressive participants would submit higher bids as they tried to beat other potential bidders, Among the negotiation group, the researchers hypothesized that more aggressive participants would make lower offers as they tried to compete against the seller to get the best deal.
Which of the following statements most accurately describes the relationship between the study’s results and the researchers’ hypotheses?

NO.119 Intuitively, intellectual skills and perceptual-motor skills seem very different because perceptual-motor skills appear more primitive. Ontogenetically, perceptual-motor skills develop before intellectual skills, or at least before most intellectual skills are manifested. Phylogenetically, creatures “high on the evolutionary ladder” are more obviously capable of intellectual skills than are creatures “lower down “.
Perceptual-motor skills also seem more closely tied to specific forms of expression. Being a chess player does not mean one can only play with pieces of a certain size, that one can only move pieces with one’s right hand, and so on. By contrast, being a violinist means one can play an instrument whose size occupies a fairly narrow range and that one must play with a rather rigid assignment of functions to effectors (bowing with the right hand, and fingering with the left). The seeming narrowness of this perceptual-motor skill expression, contrasted with the seeming openness of intellectual skill expression, seems to follow from intellectual skills having symbolic outcomes and perceptual-motor skills having non- symbolic outcomes. Symbolic outcomes need not be realized in specific ways and can rely on abstract rules. Non-symbolic outcomes, by contrast, need more specific forms of realization and seem to depend on restricted associations between stimuli and response.
Another difference between intellectual and perceptual-motor skills is that the two kinds of skill seem to be represented in different parts of the brain. For example, structures homologous to the optic rectum, a nucleus located on the dorsal surface of the midbrain, have a common function in all vertebrates- coordinating visual, auditory, and somatosensory information relevant to the control of orienting movements of the eyes, ears, and head. Similarities in structure and function between these and other brain areas associated with perceptual-motor behavior suggest that mechanisms for control of perceptual- motor skills are both highly specialized and conserved across species. In contrast, what distinguishes the human brain from the brains of other species – even closely related ones – is the differential growth of brain regions most strongly associated with intellectual skills, such as the association areas of the cerebral cortex.
The contention that these areas serve intellectual functions is supported by a large body of clinical and experimental literature. Together, these diverse sources of information suggest that perceptual-motor and intellectual skills depend on distinct brain circuits.
The passage is chiefly concerned with

NO.120 With the emergence of biotechnology companies, it was feared that they would impose silence about proprietary results on their in-house researchers and their academic consultants. This constraint, in turn, would slow the development of biological science and engineering.
Which of the following, if true, would tend to weaken most seriously the prediction of scientific secrecy described above?

NO.121

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NO.122 Which of the following best completes the passage below?
In today’s pluralistic society, textbook publishers find themselves in an increasingly uncomfortable position.
Since the schools are regarded as a repository of society’s moral and cultural values, each group within society wishes to prevent any material that offends its own values from appearing in textbooks. As a result, stance on an issue is certain to run afoul of one group or another. And since textbook publishers must rely on community goodwill to sell their books, it is inevitable that______

NO.123 Accounting for 330 known species, the parrot is widespread in tropical regions of several continents, most of them brightly colored, with strong hooked beaks and short legs.