Critical Reasoning Problems - Lesson 5

A mail order company recently had a big jump in clothing sales after hiring a copywriter and a graphic artist to give its clothing catalog a magazine like format designed to appeal to a more upscale clientele. The company is now planning to launch a housewares catalog using the same concept.

The company’s plan assumes that

Civic Leader: The high cancer rate among our citizens is the result of hazardous material produced at your plant.

Board of Directors: Our statistics show that rates of cancer are high throughout the valley in which the plant is situated because local wells that supply drinking water are polluted, not because of the plant.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the board’s claims?

Economies in which a high percentage of resources are invested in research and development show greater growth in the long run than do those in which resources are channeled into consumption. Japanese workers spend a higher percentage of their income investing in research and development than do American workers.

To grow as fast as Japan has in the past three decades, the United States must change the tax code in order to encourage savings and investment and discourage debt.

Which of the following, if true, tends to weaken the argument?

Television programming experts maintain that with each 1% increase in the prime-time ratings of a television station there is a 3.5% increase in the number of people who watch its evening news program. However, in the last ten years at Channel NTR, there was only one year of extremely high prime-time ratings and during that year, fewer people than ever watched Channel NTR’s evening news program.

Which of the following conclusions can properly be drawn from the statements above?

The people who are least likely to be audited by the Internal Revenue Service this year are those who have been audited since 1985 and who were found to have made no mistakes in filing their returns during that audit.

Of the following people, who is MOST likely to be audited by the IRS?

James’s grade point average puts him in the top third of the graduating class of college A. Nestor is in the top tenth of the same class. Elizabeth had the same grade point average as Nestor. Nancy has a lower grade point average than Elizabeth.

If the information above is true, which of the following must also be true?

Whenever a major airplane accident occurs, there is a dramatic increase in the number of airplane mishaps reported, a phenomenon that may last for as long as a few months after the accident. Airline officials assert that the publicity given the gruesomeness of major airplane accidents focuses media attention on the airline industry and the increase in the number of reported accidents is caused by an increase in the number of news sources covering airline accident, not by an increase in the number of accidents.

Which of the following, if true, would seriously weaken the assertions of the airline officials?

Questions 8-9 are based on the following.

Investing in real estate would be a profitable venture at this time. A survey in House magazine revealed that 85% of the magazine’s readers are planning to buy a second home over the next few years. A study of the real estate industry, however, revealed that the current supply of homes could only provide for 65% of that demand each year.

Which of the following, if true, reveals a weakness in the evidence cited above?

Questions 8-9 are based on the following.

Investing in real estate would be a profitable venture at this time. A survey in House magazine revealed that 85% of the magazine’s readers are planning to buy a second home over the next few years. A study of the real estate industry, however, revealed that the current supply of homes could only provide for 65% of that demand each year.

Which of the following, if true, would undermine the validity of the investment advice in the paragraph above?

Traffic safety experts predict that the installation of newly designed air bags in all cars in the United States would reduce the average number of fatalities per traffic accident by 30 percent. In order to save lives, the Department of Transportation (DOT) is considering requiring automobile manufacturers to install air bags of this design in all cars produced after 1998.

Which of the following, if true, represents the strongest challenge to the DOT’s proposal?