6. As air-breathing mammals, whales must once have lived on land and needed hind limbs capable of supporting the mammals’ weight. Whales have the bare remnants of a pelvis. If animals have a pelvis, we expect them to have hind limbs. A newly discovered fossilized whale skeleton has very fragile hind limbs that could not have supported the animal’s weight on land. This skeleton had a partial pelvis.
If the statements above are true, which one of the following, if also true, would most strongly support the conclusion that the fragile hind limbs are remnants of limbs that land-dwelling whales once had?
(A) Whale bones older than the fossilized hind limbs confirm that ancient whales had full pelvises.
(B) No skeletons of ancient whales with intact hind limbs capable of supporting the mammals’ weight have ever been found.
(C) Scientists are uncertain whether the apparently nonfunctioning limbs of other early mammals derived from once-functioning limbs of their ancestors.
(D) Other large-bodied mammals like seals and sea lions maneuver on beaches and rocky coasts without fully functioning hind limbs.
(E) Some smaller sea-dwelling mammals, such as modern dolphins, have no visible indications of hind limbs.
7. The stated goal of the government’s funding program for the arts is to encourage the creation of works of artistic excellence. Senator Beton claims, however, that a government-funded artwork can never reflect the independent artistic conscience of the artist because artists, like anyone else who accepts financial support, will inevitably try to please those who control the distribution of that support. Senator Beton concludes that government funding of the arts not only is a burden on taxpayers but also cannot lead to the creation of works of true artistic excellence.
Which one of the following is an assumption on which Senator Beton’s argument is based?
(A) Most taxpayers have little or no interest in the creation of works of true artistic excellence.
(B) Government funding of the arts is more generous than other financial support most artists receive.
(C) Distribution of government funds for the arts is based on a broad agreement as to what constitutes artistic excellence.
(D) Once an artist has produced works of true artistic excellence, he or she will never accept government funding.
(E) A contemporary work of art that does not reflect the independent artistic conscience of the artist cannot be a work of true artistic excellence.
8. Older United States automobiles have been identified as contributing disproportionately to global air pollution. The requirement in many jurisdictions that automobiles pass emission-control inspections has had the effect of taking many such automobiles out of service in the United States, as they fail inspection and their owners opt to buy newer automobiles. Thus the burden of pollution such older United States automobiles contribute to the global atmosphere will be gradually reduced over the next decade.
Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
(A) It is impossible to separate the air of one country or jurisdiction from that of others.
(B) When automobiles that are now new become older, they will, because of a design change, cause less air pollution than older automobiles do now.
(C) There is a thriving market for used older Untied States automobiles that are exported to regions that have no emission-control regulations.
(D) The number of jurisdictions in the United States requiring automobiles to pass emission-control inspections is no longer increasing.
(E) Even if all the older automobiles in the United States were retired from service, air pollution from United States automobiles could still increase if the total number of automobiles in use should increase significantly.
9. The journalistic practice of fabricating remarks after an interview and printing them within quotation marks, as if they were the interviewee’s own words, has been decried as a form of unfair misrepresentation. However, people’s actual spoken remarks rarely convey their ideas as clearly as does a distillation of those ideas crafted, after an interview, by a skilled writer. Therefore, since this practice avoids the more serious misrepresentation that would occur if people’s exact words were quoted but their ideas only partially expressed, it is entirely defensible.
Which one of the following is a questionable technique used in the argument?
(A) answering an exaggerated charge by undermining the personal authority of those who made that charge
(B) claiming that the prestige of a profession provides ample grounds for dismissing criticisms of that profession
(C) offering as an adequate defense of a practice an observation that discredits only one of several possible alternatives to that practice
(D) concluding that a practice is right on the grounds that it is necessary
(E) using the opponent’s admission that a practice is sometimes appropriate as conclusive proof that that practice is never inappropriate
10. The reforms to improve the quality of public education that have been initiated on the part of suppliers of public education have been insufficient. Therefore, reforms must be demanded by consumers. Parents should be given government vouchers with which to pay for their children’s education and should be allowed to choose the schools at which the vouchers will be spent. To attract students, academically underachieving schools will be forced to improve their academic offerings.
The argument assumes that
(A) in selecting schools parents would tend to prefer a reasonable level of academic quality to greater sports opportunities or more convenient location
(B) improvement in the academic offerings of schools will be enforced by the discipline of the job market in which graduating students compete
(C) there is a single best way to educate students
(D) children are able to recognize which schools are better and would influence their parents’ decisions
(E) schools would each improve all of their academic offerings and would not tend to specialize in one particular field to the exclusion of others