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Questions 6-7
High-technology medicine is driving up the nation’s health care costs. Recent advances in cataract surgery illustrate why this is occurring. Cataracts are a major cause of blindness, especially in elderly people. Ten years ago, cataract surgery was painful and not always effective. Thanks to the new technology used in cataract surgery, the operation now restores vision dramatically and is less expensive. These two factors have caused the number of cataract operations performed to increase greatly, which has, in turn, drive up the total amount spent on cataract surgery.
6. Which one of the following can be inferred from the passage?
(A) Ten years ago, few people had successful cataract surgery.
(B) In the long run, the advantages of advanced medical technology are likely to be outweighed by the disadvantages.
(C) The total amount spent on cataract surgery has increased because the increased number of people electing to have the surgery more than offsets the decrease in cost per operation.
(D) Huge increases in the nation’s health care costs are due primarily to increased demand for surgery for older people.
(E) Ten years ago, cataract surgery was affordable for more people than it was last year.
7. Each of the following, if true, would support a challenge to the author’s explanation of the increase in the number of cataract operations EXCEPT:
(A) The overall population of the nation has increased from what it was ten years ago.
(B) Any one individual’s chance of developing cataracts is greater than it was ten years ago.
(C) The number of older people has increased during the last ten years.
(D) Today, health insurance covers cataract surgery for more people than it did ten years ago.
(E) People who have had unsuccessful cataract surgery are left with more seriously impaired vision than they had before the surgery.
8. Some companies in fields where skilled employees are hard to find make signing an “agreement not to compete” a condition of employment. In such an agreement the employee promises not to go work for a competing firm for a set period after leaving his or her current employer. Courts are increasingly ruling that these agreements are not binding. Yet paradoxically, for people who signed such agreements when working for competing firms, many firms are unwilling to consider hiring them during the period covered by the agreement.
Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the paradox?
(A) Many companies will not risk having to become involved in lawsuits, even suits that they expect to have a favorable outcome.
(B) In some industries, for example the broadcast media, companies’ main source of new employees tends to be people who are already employed by competing firms.
(C) Most companies that require their employees to sign agreements not to compete are aware that these documents are not legally binding.
(D) Many people who have signed agreements not to compete are unwilling to renege on a promise by going to work for a competing firm.
(E) Many companied consider their employees established relationships with clients and other people outside the company to be valuable company assets.
9. Many Ann: Our country should, above all, be strong. Strength gains the respect of other countries and makes a country admirable.
Inez: There are many examples in history of countries that were strong but used their strength to commit atrocities. We should judge a country by the morality of its actions, not by its strength. If the actions are morally good, the country is admirable.
Which one of the following is a presupposition that underlies Inez’ argument?
(A) At least one country is admirable.
(B) Countries can not be both strong and moral.
(C) It is possible to assign moral weight to the actions of countries.
(D) The citizens of any country believe that whatever their country does is good.
(E) Countries should impose their standards of morality on other countries by whatever means necessary.
10. All of John’s friends say they know someone who has smoked 40 cigarettes a day for the past 40 years and yet who is really fit and well. John does not know anyone like that and it is quite certain that he is not unique among his friends in this respect.
If the statements in the passage are true, then which one of the following must also be true?
(A) Smokers often lie about how much they smoke.
(B) People often knowingly exaggerate without intending to lie.
(C) All John’s friends know the same lifelong heavy smoker.
(D) Most of John’s friends are not telling the truth.
(E) Some of John’s friends are not telling the truth.