Thursday, July 23, 2009

Answers of Reasoning and Verbal Ability Questions

TEST B


1. D

2. A

3. E

4. B

5. C

6. B

7. D

8. D

9. E

10. C

11. B

12. A

13. E

14. E

15. A

16. A

17. B

18. C

19. C

20. B

Reasoning and verbal Ability test for the preparation of CAT, XAT, SNAP, GMAT

1. Below is an excerpt from a letter that was sent by the chairman of a corporation to the stockholders.

A number of charges have been raised against me, some serious, some trivial. Individuals seeking to control the corporation for their own purposes have demanded my resignation. Remember that no court of law in any state has found me guilty of any criminal offense whatsoever. In the American tradition, as you know, an individual is considered innocent until proven guilty. Furthermore, as the corporation’s unbroken six-year record of growth will show, my conduct of my official duties as chairman has only helped enhance the success of the corporation, and so benefited every stockholder.


Which of the following can be properly inferred from the excerpt?


(A) The chairman believes that all those who have demanded his resignation are motivated by desire to control the corporation for their own purposes.

(B) Any misdeeds that the chairman may have committed were motivated by his desire to enhance the success of the corporation.

(C) The chairman is innocent of any criminal offense.

(D) The corporation has expanded steadily over the past six years.D

(E) Any legal proceedings against the chairman have resulted in his acquittal.


2. In the years since the city of London imposed strict air-pollution regulations on local industry, the number of bird species seen in and around London has increased dramatically. Similar air-pollution rules should be imposed in other major cities.

Each of the following is an assumption made in the argument above EXCEPT:


(A) In most major cities, air-pollution problems are caused almost entirely by local industry.

(B) Air-pollution regulations on industry have a significant impact on the quality of the air.

(C) The air-pollution problems of other major cities are basically similar to those once suffered by London.

(D) An increase in the number of bird species in and around a city is desirable.A

(E) The increased sightings of bird species in and around London reflect an actual increase in the number of species in the area.


3. Which of the following best completes the passage below?

In opposing government regulation of business, conservatives often appeal to the Jeffersonian ideal of limited government, expressing the wish that government would “get off the backs of the American people.” Yet, paradoxically, many of these same conservatives address questions of private morality, such as those dealing with sexual behavior, by calling for______


(A) a return to the restrictive sexual morality of the Victorian era

(B) a strengthening of the role of the family in setting moral norms for society

(C) a limitation on the amount of sexually provocative material appearing in books, motives, and television shows

(D) greater freedom for individuals to choose their own way of handling sexual issuesE

(E) an increased governmental role in the regulation and control of private sexual behavior


Questions 4-5 are based on the following:

In an experiment, two different types of recorded music were played for neonates in adjacent nurseries in a hospital. In nursery A, classical music was played; in nursery B, rock music was played. After two weeks, it was found that the babies in nursery A cried less, suffered fewer minor ailments, and gained more weight than did the babies in nursery B.

4. In evaluating the validity of the conclusion suggested by the experiment above, it would be most important to know which of the following?


(A) The musical preferences of the parents of the two groups of newborns

(B) Whether the newborns in both nurseries were equally healthy and happy at the start of the experiment

(C) Whether loud rock music can damage the hearing of newborns

(D) What the average weight of the neonates was before and after the experimentB

(E) Whether the music was played in the nurseries at all times or only at certain times


5. Which of the following additional experimental data would support the hypothesis that classical music is beneficial to the development of newborn?


(A) The neonates in a nursery where no music was played fared better than those in nursery B.

(B) Nursery A contained 15 percent more premature babies than nursery B.

(C) The newborns in nursery A cried less, suffered fewer minor ailments, and gained more weight than did newborns in a nursery with no music.

(D) The music played in nursery A was louder than that played in nursery B.C

(E) The ratio of nurses to newborns in nursery B was 1 to 4; in nursery A, it was 1 to 6.


6. The ancient city of Cephesa was not buried by an eruption of Mt. Amnos in A.D. 310, as some believe. The eruption in the year 310 damaged the city, but it did not destroy it. Cephesa survived for another century before it finally met its destruction in another eruption around A.D. 415.

Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the author’s claim that the city of Cephesa was not buried by the eruption of Mt. Amnos in A.D. 310?


(A) The city of Cephesa is mentioned in a historical work known to have been written in A.D. 400.

(B) Coins bearing the image of an emperor who lived around A.D. 410 have been discovered in the ruins of Cephesa, which were preserved by the cinders and ashes that buried the city.

(C) Geological evidence shows that the eruption of Mt. Amnos in A.D. 415 deposited a 10-foot-thick layer of lava on the city of Cephesa.

(D) Artworks from the city of Cephesa have been found in the ruins of another city known to have been destroyed in A.D. 420.B

(E) A historical work written in A.D. 430 refers to the eruption of Mt. Amnos in A.D. 415.


7. June is taller than Kristin.

Letty is taller than Maria.

Maria is shorter than Nancy.

Kristin and Nancy are exactly the same height.

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


(A) Letty is taller than Nancy.

(B) Letty is taller than June.

(C) Kristin is shorter than Letty.

(D) June is taller than Maria.D

(E) Kristin is shorter than Maria.


8. Current farm policy is institutionalized penalization of consumers. It increases food prices for middle- and low-income families and costs the taxpayer billions of dollars a year.

Which of the following statements, if true, would provide support for the author’s claims above?

I. Farm subsidies amount to roughly $20 billion a year in federal payouts and $12 billion more in higher food prices.

II. According to a study by the Department of Agriculture, each $1 of benefits provided to farmers for ethanol production costs consumers and taxpayers $4.

III. The average full-time farmers have an average net worth of over $300,000.


(A) I only

(B) II only

(C) III only

(D) I and II onlyD

(E) I, II, and III


9. Reva: Using extraneous incentives to get teenagers to change their attitude toward school and schoolwork won’t work. Take the program in West Virginia, for instance, where they tried to reduce their dropout rate by revoking the driving licenses of kids who left school. The program failed miserably.

Anne: It’s true that the West Virginia program failed, but many schools have devised incentive programs that have been very successful in improving attendance and reducing discipline problems.

According to Anne, the weak point in Reva’s claim is that it


(A) fails to consider the possibility that the majority of potential dropouts in West Virginia do not have driving licenses

(B) doesn’t provide any exact figures for the dropout rate in West Virginia before and during the program

(C) ignores a substantial body of evidence showing that parents and employers have been using extrinsic incentives with positive results for years

(D) assumes that a positive incentive—a prize or a reward—will be no more effective than a negative incentive, like the revoking of a driving licenseE

(E) is based on a single example, the incentive program in West Virginia, which may not be typical


10. In many surveys, American consumers have expressed a willingness to spend up to 10 percent more for products that are ecologically sound. Encouraged by such surveys, Bleach-O Corporation promoted a new laundry detergent, Bleach-O Green, as safer for the environment. Bleach-O Green cost 5 percent more than typical detergents. After one year, Bleach-O Green had failed to capture a significant share of the detergent market and was withdrawn from sale.

Which of the following questions is LEAST likely to be relevant in determining the reasons for the failure of Bleach-O Green?


(A) How effective as a detergent was Bleach-O Green?

(B) How many other detergents on the market were promoted as safe for the environment?

(C) How much more did Bleach-O Green cost to manufacture than ordinary detergents?

(D) To what extent did consumers accept the validity of Bleach-O Green advertised and promoted to consumers?C

(E) How effectively was Bleach-O Green advertised and promoted to consumers?


11. The burden of maintaining the U.S. highway system falls disproportionately on the trucking industry. Trucks represent only about 10 percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads. Yet road use taxes assessed on trucks amount to almost half the taxes paid for highway upkeep and repair.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above?


(A) The trucking industry has enjoyed record after-tax profits in three of the past four years.

(B) Because of their weight, trucks cause over 50 percent of the damage sustained by highway surfaces each year.

(C) Without an economically viable trucking industry, the cost of goods in the United States would rise significantly.

(D) Road use taxes paid by trucking companies have decreased by 3 percent over the past five years.B

(E) Due to years of neglect, U.S. highways today are badly in need of major repairs and rebuilding.


12. The upcoming presidential election in the West African republic of Ganelon is of grave concern to the U.S. State Department. Ganelon presently has strong political and military ties to the United States. However, the Socialist party is widely expected to win the election, leading to fears that Ganelon will soon break away from the pro-American bloc and adopt a nonaligned or openly anti-American stance.

Which of the following is an assumption made in the passage above?


(A) A Socialist party government in Ganelon is more likely to oppose the United States than is a non-Socialist party government.

(B) The people of the United States recognize their nation’s interest in the political stability of West Africa.

(C) A weakening of U.S. political ties with Ganelon could have serious consequences for U.S. relations with other African nations.

(D) The Socialist party leaders in Ganelon believe that their nation’s interests would best be served by an alliance with anti-American forces.A

(E) The Socialist party will win the upcoming election in Ganelon.


13. No nation can long survive unless its people are united by a common tongue. For proof, we need only consider Canada, which is being torn asunder by conflicts between French-speaking Quebec and the other provinces, which are dominated by English speakers.

Which of the following, if true, most effectively challenges the author’s conclusion?


(A) Conflicts over language have led to violent clashes between the Basque-speaking minority in Spain and the Spanish-speaking majority.

(B) Proposals to declare English the official language of the United States have met with resistance from members of Hispanic and other minority groups.

(C) Economic and political differences, along with linguistic ones, have contributed to the provincial conflicts in Canada.

(D) The public of India, in existence sine 1948, has a population that speaks hundreds of different, though related, languages.E

(E) Switzerland has survived for nearly a thousand years as a home for speakers of three different languages.


14. As an experienced labor organizer and the former head of one of the nation’s most powerful labor unions, Grayson is an excellent choice to chair the new council on business-labor relations.

Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the conclusion above?


(A) The new council must have the support of the nation’s labor leaders if it is to succeed.

(B) During his years as a labor leader, Grayson established a record of good relations with business leaders.

(C) The chair of the new council must be a person who can communicate directly with the leaders of the nation’s largest labor unions.

(D) Most of the other members of the new council will be representatives of business management interests.E

(E) An understanding of the needs and problems of labor is the only qualification necessary for the job of chairing the new council.


15. In the effort to fire a Civil Service employee, his or her manager may have to spend up to $100,000 of tax money. Since Civil Service employees know how hard it is to fire them, they tend to loaf. This explains in large part why the government is so inefficient.

It can be properly inferred on the basis of the statements above that the author believes which of the following?

I. Too much job security can have a negative influence on workers.

II. More government workers should be fired.

III. Most government workers are Civil Service employees.


(A) I only

(B) I and III only

(C) II only

(D) I, II, and IIIA

(E) III only


16. Some commentators complain that a “litigation explosion” in the past decade has led to unreasonably high costs for U.S. businesses by encouraging more product liability suits against manufacturers. However, these complaints are based mainly on myth. Statistics show that the number of successful product liability suits has remained almost the same, and the average sum awarded in damages has grown no faster than the inflation rate.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above?


(A) The number of unsuccessful suits has skyrocketed, imposing huge new legal expenses on businesses.

(B) Several of the largest awards ever made in product liability cases occurred within the last two years.

(C) The rise of the consumer movement has encouraged citizens to seek legal redress for product flaws.

(D) Lawyers often undertake product liability cases on a contingency basis, so their payment is based on the size of the damages awarded.A

(E) Juries often award damages in product liability suits out of emotional sympathy for an injured consumer.


17. Ronald: According to my analysis of the national economy, housing prices should not increase during the next six months unless interest rates drop significantly.

Mark: I disagree. One year ago, when interest rates last fell significantly, housing prices did not increase at all.

It can be inferred from the conversation above that Mark has interpreted Ronald’s statement to mean that


(A) housing prices will rise only if interest rates fall

(B) if interest rates fall, housing prices must rise

(C) interest rates and housing prices tend to rise and fall together

(D) interest rates are the only significant economic factor affecting housing pricesB

(E) interest rates are likely to fall significantly in the next six months


18. It’s time we stopped searching for new statistics to suggest that we are not spending enough on education. In fact, education spending increased 30 percent overall during the last decade.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the argument above?


(A) Despite increased spending on education, enrollment in our elementary and secondary schools declined about 4 percent during the last ten years.

(B) Our spending on gasoline increased more than 100 percent during the last decade.

(C) When adjusted for inflation, our per-pupil expenditure on education this year is less than it was ten years ago.

(D) Eleven other economically developed nations spend more on education than we do.C

(E) The achievement levels of our students have been declining steadily since 1960, and the last decade produced no reversal in this trend.


19. The U.S. census is not perfect: thousands of Americans probably go uncounted. However, the basic statistical portrait of the nation painted by the census is accurate. Certainly some of the poor go uncounted, particularly the homeless; but some of the rich go uncounted as well, because they are often abroad or traveling between one residence and another.

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


(A) Both the rich and the poor have personal and economic reasons to avoid being counted by the census.

(B) All Americans may reasonably be classified as either poor or rich.

(C) The percentage of poor Americans uncounted by the census is close to the percentage of rich Americans uncounted.

(D) The number of homeless Americans is approximately equal to the number of rich Americans.C

(E) The primary purpose of the census is to analyze the economic status of the American population.


20. 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______


(A) fewer and fewer publishers will be willing to enter the financially uncertain textbook industry

(B) the ethical and moral content of textbooks will become increasingly neutral and bland

(C) more and more pressure groups will arise that seek to influence the content of textbooks

(D) the government will be forced to intervene in the increasingly rancorous debate over the content of textbooksB

(E) school boards, teachers, and principals will find it nearly impossible to choose among the variety of textbooks being offered


Click here for the answers of above questions.


Thank You

RC Passages for 23rd July

Passage 17

Prior to 1975, union efforts to organize public-sector clerical workers, most of whom are women, were somewhat limited. The factors favoring unionization drives seem to have been either the presence of large numbers of workers, as in New York City, to make it worth the effort, or the concentration of small numbers in one or two locations, such as a hospital, to make it relatively easy. Receptivity to unionization on the workers’ part was also a consideration, but when there were large numbers involved or the clerical workers were the only unorganized group in a jurisdiction, the multi-occupational unions would often try to organize them regardless of the workers’ initial receptivity. The strategic reasoning was based, first, on the concern that politicians and administrators might play off unionized against non-unionized workers, and, second, on the conviction that a fully unionized public work force meant power, both at the bargaining table and in the legislature. In localities where clerical workers were few in number, were scattered in several workplaces, and expressed no interest in being organized, unions more often than not ignored them in the pre-1975 period.
But since the mid-1970’s, a different strategy has emerged. In 1977, 34 percent of government clerical workers were represented by a labor organization, compared with 46 percent of government professionals, 44 percent of government blue-collar workers, and 41 percent of government service workers. Since then, however, the biggest increases in public-sector unionization have been among clerical workers. Between 1977 and 1980, the number of unionized government workers in blue-collar and service occupations increased only about 1.5 percent, while in the white-collar occupations the increase was 20 percent and among clerical workers in particular, the increase was 22 percent.
What accounts for this upsurge in unionization among clerical workers? First, more women have entered the work force in the past few years, and more of them plan to remain working until retirement age. Consequently, they are probably more concerned than their predecessors were about job security and economic benefits. Also, the women’s movement has succeeded in legitimizing the economic and political activism of women on their own behalf, thereby producing a more positive attitude toward unions. The absence of any comparable increase in unionization among private-sector clerical workers, however, identifies the primary catalyst—the structural change in the multi-occupational public-sector unions themselves. Over the past twenty years, the occupational distribution in these unions has been steadily shifting from predominantly blue-collar to predominantly white-collar. Because there are far more women in white-collar jobs, an increase in the proportion of female members has accompanied the occupational shift and has altered union policy-making in favor of organizing women and addressing women’s issues.

1. According to the passage, the public-sector workers who were most likely to belong to unions in 1977 were

(A) professionals
(B) managers
(C) clerical workers
(D) service workers
(E) blue-collar workers

2. The author cites union efforts to achieve a fully unionized work force (line 13-19) in order to account for why

(A) politicians might try to oppose public-sector union organizing
(B) public-sector unions have recently focused on organizing women
(C) early organizing efforts often focused on areas where there were large numbers of workers
(D) union efforts with regard to public-sector clerical workers increased dramatically after 1975
(E) unions sometimes tried to organize workers regardless of the workers’ initial interest in unionization

3. The author’s claim that, since the mid-1970’s, a new strategy has emerged in the unionization of public-sector clerical workers (line 23) would be strengthened if the author

(A) described more fully the attitudes of clerical workers toward labor unions
(B) compared the organizing strategies employed by private-sector unions with those of public-sector unions
(C) explained why politicians and administrators sometimes oppose unionization of clerical workers
(D) indicated that the number of unionized public-sector clerical workers was increasing even before the mid-1970’s
(E) showed that the factors that favored unionization drives among these workers prior to 1975 have decreased in importance

4. According to the passage, in the period prior to 1975, each of the following considerations helped determine whether a union would attempt to organize a certain group of clerical workers EXCEPT

(A) the number of clerical workers in that group
(B) the number of women among the clerical workers in that group
(C) whether the clerical workers in that area were concentrated in one workplace or scattered over several workplaces
(D) the degree to which the clerical workers in that group were interested in unionization
(E) whether all the other workers in the same jurisdiction as that group of clerical workers were unionized

5. The author states that which of the following is a consequence of the women’s movement of recent years?

(A) An increase in the number of women entering the work force
(B) A structural change in multi-occupational public-sector unions
(C) A more positive attitude on the part of women toward unions
(D) An increase in the proportion of clerical workers that are women
(E) An increase in the number of women in administrative positions

6. The main concern of the passage is to

(A) advocate particular strategies for future efforts to organize certain workers into labor unions
(B) explain differences in the unionized proportions of various groups of public-sector workers
(C) evaluate the effectiveness of certain kinds of labor unions that represent public-sector workers
(D) analyzed and explain an increase in unionization among a certain category of workers
(E) describe and distinguish strategies appropriate to organizing different categories of workers

7. The author implies that if the increase in the number of women in the work force and the impact of the women’s movement were the main causes of the rise in unionization of public-sector clerical workers, then

(A) more women would hold administrative positions in unions
(B) more women who hold political offices would have positive attitudes toward labor unions
(C) there would be an equivalent rise in unionization of private-sector clerical workers
(D) unions would have shown more interest than they have in organizing women
(E) the increase in the number of unionized public-sector clerical workers would have been greater than it has been

8. The author suggests that it would be disadvantageous to a union if

(A) many workers in the locality were not unionized
(B) the union contributed to political campaigns
(C) the union included only public-sector workers
(D) the union included workers from several jurisdictions
(E) the union included members from only a few occupations

9. The author implies that, in comparison with working women today, women working in the years prior to the mid-1970’s showed a greater tendency to

(A) prefer smaller workplaces
(B) express a positive attitude toward labor unions
(C) maximize job security and economic benefits
(D) side with administrators in labor disputes
(E) quit working prior of retirement age


Passage 18

Milankovitch proposed in the early twentieth century that the ice ages were caused by variations in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. For sometime this theory was considered untestable, largely because there was no sufficiently precise chronology of the ice ages with which the orbital variations could be matched.
To establish such a chronology it is necessary to determine the relative amounts of land ice that existed at various times in the Earth’s past. A recent discovery makes such a determination possible: relative land-ice volume for a given period can be deduced from the ratio of two oxygen isotopes, 16 and 18, found in ocean sediments. Almost all the oxygen in water is oxygen 16, but a few molecules out of every thousand incorporate the heavier isotope 18. When an ice age begins, the continental ice sheets grow, steadily reducing the amount of water evaporated from the ocean that will eventually return to it. Because heavier isotopes tend to be left behind when water evaporates from the ocean surfaces, the remaining ocean water becomes progressively enriched in oxygen 18. The degree of enrichment can be determined by analyzing ocean sediments of the period, because these sediments are composed of calcium carbonate shells of marine organisms, shells that were constructed with oxygen atoms drawn from the surrounding ocean. The higher the ratio of oxygen 18 to oxygen 16 in a sedimentary specimen, the more land ice there was when the sediment was laid down.
As an indicator of shifts in the Earth’s climate, the isotope record has two advantages. First, it is a global record: there is remarkably little variation in isotope ratios in sedimentary specimens taken from different continental locations. Second, it is a more continuous record than that taken from rocks on land. Because of these advantages, sedimentary evidence can be dated with sufficient accuracy by radiometric methods to establish a precise chronology of the ice ages. The dated isotope record shows that the fluctuations in global ice volume over the past several hundred thousand years have a pattern: an ice age occurs roughly once every 100,000 years. These data have established a strong connection between variations in the Earth’s orbit and the periodicity of the ice ages.
However, it is important to note that other factors, such as volcanic particulates or variations in the amount of sunlight received by the Earth, could potentially have affected the climate. The advantage of the Milankovitch theory is that it is testable: changes in the Earth’s orbit can be calculated and dated by applying Newton’s laws of gravity to progressively earlier configurations of the bodies in the solar system. Yet the lack of information about other possible factors affecting global climate does not make them unimportant.

1. In the passage, the author is primarily interested in

(A) suggesting an alternative to an outdated research method
(B) introducing a new research method that calls an accepted theory into question
(C) emphasizing the instability of data gathered from the application of a new scientific method
(D) presenting a theory and describing a new method to test that theory
(E) initiating a debate about a widely accepted theory

2. The author of the passage would be most likely to agree with which of the following statements about the Milankovitch theory?

(A) It is the only possible explanation for the ice ages.
(B) It is too limited to provide a plausible explanation for the ice ages, despite recent research findings.
(C) It cannot be tested and confirmed until further research on volcanic activity is done.
(D) It is one plausible explanation, though not the only one, for the ice ages.
(E) It is not a plausible explanation for the ice ages, although it has opened up promising possibilities for future research.

3. It can be inferred from the passage that the isotope record taken from ocean sediments would be less useful to researchers if which of the following were true?

(A) It indicated that lighter isotopes of oxygen predominated at certain times.
(B) It had far more gaps in its sequence than the record taken from rocks on land.
(C) It indicated that climate shifts did not occur every 100,000 years.
(D) It indicated that the ratios of oxygen 16 and oxygen 18 in ocean water were not consistent with those found in fresh water.
(E) It stretched back for only a million years.

4. According to the passage, which of the following is true of the ratios of oxygen isotopes in ocean sediments?

(A) They indicate that sediments found during an ice age contain more calcium carbonate than sediments formed at other times.
(B) They are less reliable than the evidence from rocks on land in determining the volume of land ice.
(C) They can be used to deduce the relative volume of land ice that was present when the sediment was laid down.
(D) They are more unpredictable during an ice age than in other climatic conditions.
(E) They can be used to determine atmospheric conditions at various times in the past.

5. It can be inferred from the passage that precipitation formed from evaporated ocean water has

(A) the same isotopic ratio as ocean water
(B) less oxygen 18 than does ocean water
(C) less oxygen 18 than has the ice contained in continental ice sheets
(D) a different isotopic composition than has precipitation formed from water on land
(E) more oxygen 16 than has precipitation formed from fresh water

6. According to the passage, which of the following is (are) true of the ice ages?

I. The last ice age occurred about 25,000 years ago.
II. Ice ages have lasted about 10,000 years for at least the last several hundred thousand years.
III. Ice ages have occurred about every 100,000 years for at least the last several hundred thousand years.

(A) I only
(B) II only
(C) III only
(D) I and only
(E) I, II and III

7. It can be inferred from the passage that calcium carbonate shells

(A) are not as susceptible to deterioration as rocks
(B) are less common in sediments formed during an ice age
(C) are found only in areas that were once covered by land ice
(D) contain radioactive material that can be used to determine a sediment’s isotopic composition
(E) reflect the isotopic composition of the water at the time the shells were formed

8. The purpose of the last paragraph of the passage is to

(A) offer a note of caution
(B) introduce new evidence
(C) present two recent discoveries
(D) summarize material in the preceding paragraphs
(E) offer two explanations for a phenomenon

9. According to the passage, one advantage of studying the isotope record of ocean sediments is that it

(A) corresponds with the record of ice volume taken from rocks on land
(B) shows little variation in isotope ratios when samples are taken from different continental locations
(C) corresponds with predictions already made by climatologists and experts in other fields
(D) confirms the record of ice volume initially established by analyzing variations in volcanic emissions
(E) provides data that can be used to substantiate records concerning variations in the amount of sunlight received by the Earth

Click here for Answers of above RC Passages

Thank You

Answers of RC Passages for 23rd July

Passage 17


1. A

2. E

3. E

4. B

5. C

6. D

7. C

8. A

9. E

10.


Passage 18


1. D

2. D

3. B

4. C

5. B

6. C

7. E

8. A

9. B

10.

Answers of RC passages for 22 July

Passage 15

1. D 2. C 3. A 4. D 5. C
6. D 7. C 8. A 9. 10.

Passage 16

1. A 2. C 3. B 4. B 5. C
6. D 7. B 8. 9. 10.

Passages for 22 July

Passage 15

In the two decades between 1910 and 1930, over ten percent of the Black population of the United States left the South, where the preponderance of the Black population had been located, and migrated to northern states, with the largest number moving, it is claimed, between 1916 and 1918. It has been frequently assumed, but not proved, that the majority of the migrants in what has come to be called the Great Migration came from rural areas and were motivated by two concurrent factors: the collapse of the cotton industry following the boll weevil infestation, which began in 1898, and increased demand in the North for labor following the cessation of European immigration caused by the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. This assumption has led to the conclusion that the migrants’ subsequent lack of economic mobility in the North is tied to rural background, a background that implies unfamiliarity with urban living and a lack of industrial skills.
But the question of who actually left the South has never been rigorously investigated. Although numerous investigations document an exodus from rural southern areas to southern cities prior to the Great Migration, no one has considered whether the same migrants then moved on to northern cities. In 1910 over 600,000 Black workers, or ten percent of the Black work force, reported themselves to be engaged in “manufacturing and mechanical pursuits,” the federal census category roughly encompassing the entire industrial sector. The Great Migration could easily have been made up entirely of this group and their families. It is perhaps surprising to argue that an employed population could be enticed to move, but an explanation lies in the labor conditions then prevalent in the South.
About thirty-five percent of the urban Black population in the South was engaged in skilled trades. Some were from the old artisan class of slavery—blacksmiths, masons, carpenters—which had had a monopoly of certain trades, but they were gradually being pushed out by competition, mechanization, and obsolescence. The remaining sixty-five percent, more recently urbanized, worked in newly developed industries—tobacco, lumber, coal and iron manufacture, and railroads. Wages in the South, however, were low, and Black workers were aware, through labor recruiters and the Black press, that they could earn more even as unskilled workers in the North than they could as artisans in the South. After the boll weevil infestation, urban Black workers faced competition from the continuing influx of both Black and White rural workers, who were driven to undercut the wages formerly paid for industrial jobs. Thus, a move north would be seen as advantageous to a group that was already urbanized and steadily employed, and the easy conclusion tying their subsequent economic problems in the North to their rural background comes into question.

1. The author indicates explicitly that which of the following records has been a source of information in her investigation?

(A) United States Immigration Service reports from 1914 to 1930
(B) Payrolls of southern manufacturing firms between 1910 and 1930
(C) The volume of cotton exports between 1898 and 1910
(D) The federal census of 1910
(E) Advertisements of labor recruiters appearing in southern newspapers after 1910

2. In the passage, the author anticipates which of the following as a possible objection to her argument?

(A) It is uncertain how many people actually migrated during the Great Migration.
(B) The eventual economic status of the Great Migration migrants has not been adequately traced.
(C) It is not likely that people with steady jobs would have reason to move to another area of the country.
(D) It is not true that the term “manufacturing and mechanical pursuits” actually encompasses the entire industrial sector.
(E) Of the Black workers living in southern cities, only those in a small number of trades were threatened by obsolescence.

3. According to the passage, which of the following is true of wages in southern cities in 1910?

(A) They were being pushed lower as a result of increased competition.
(B) They had begun t to rise so that southern industry could attract rural workers.
(C) They had increased for skilled workers but decreased for unskilled workers.
(D) They had increased in large southern cities but decreased in small southern cities.
(E) They had increased in newly developed industries but decreased in the older trades.

4. The author cites each of the following as possible influences in a Black worker’s decision to migrate north in the Great Migration EXCEPT

(A) wage levels in northern cities
(B) labor recruiters
(C) competition from rural workers
(D) voting rights in northern states
(E) the Black press

5. It can be inferred from the passage that the “easy conclusion” mentioned in line 53 is based on which of the following assumptions?

(A) People who migrate from rural areas to large cities usually do so for economic reasons.
(B) Most people who leave rural areas to take jobs in cities return to rural areas as soon as it is financially possible for them to do so.
(C) People with rural backgrounds are less likely to succeed economically in cities than are those with urban backgrounds.
(D) Most people who were once skilled workers are not willing to work as unskilled workers.
(E) People who migrate from their birthplaces to other regions of country seldom undertake a second migration.

6. The primary purpose of the passage is to

(A) support an alternative to an accepted methodology
(B) present evidence that resolves a contradiction
(C) introduce a recently discovered source of information
(D) challenge a widely accepted explanation
(E) argue that a discarded theory deserves new attention

7. According to information in the passage, which of the following is a correct sequence of groups of workers, from highest paid to lowest paid, in the period between 1910 and 1930?

(A) Artisans in the North; artisans in the South; unskilled workers in the North; unskilled workers in the South
(B) Artisans in the North and South; unskilled workers in the North; unskilled workers in the South
(C) Artisans in the North; unskilled workers in the North; artisans in the South
(D) Artisans in the North and South; unskilled urban workers in the North; unskilled rural workers in the South
(E) Artisans in the North and South, unskilled rural workers in the North and South; unskilled urban workers in the North and South

8. The material in the passage would be most relevant to a long discussion of which of the following topics?

(A) The reasons for the subsequent economic difficulties of those who participated in the Great Migration
(B) The effect of migration on the regional economies of the United States following the First World War
(C) The transition from a rural to an urban existence for those who migrated in the Great Migration
(D) The transformation of the agricultural South following the boll weevil infestation
(E) The disappearance of the artisan class in the United States as a consequence of mechanization in the early twentieth century


Passage 16

In 1896 a Georgia couple suing for damages in the accidental death of their two year old was told that since the child had made no real economic contribution to the family, there was no liability for damages. In contrast, less than a century later, in 1979, the parents of a three-year-old sued in New York for accidental-death damages and won an award of $750,000.
The transformation in social values implicit in juxtaposing these two incidents is the subject of Viviana Zelizer’s excellent book, Pricing the Priceless Child. During the nineteenth century, she argues, the concept of the “useful” child who contributed to the family economy gave way gradually to the present-day notion of the “useless” child who, though producing no income for, and indeed extremely costly to, its parents, is yet considered emotionally “priceless.” Well established among segments of the middle and upper classes by the mid-1800’s, this new view of childhood spread throughout society in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries as reformers introduced child-labor regulations and compulsory education laws predicated in part on the assumption that a child’s emotional value made child labor taboo.
For Zelizer the origins of this transformation were many and complex. The gradual erosion of children’s productive value in a maturing industrial economy, the decline in birth and death rates, especially in child mortality, and the development of the companionate family (a family in which members were united by explicit bonds of love rather than duty) were all factors critical in changing the assessment of children’s worth. Yet “expulsion of children from the ‘cash nexus,’ although clearly shaped by profound changes in the economic, occupational, and family structures,” Zelizer maintains, “was also part of a cultural process ‘of sacrelization’ of children’s lives.” Protecting children from the crass business world became enormously important for late-nineteenth-century middle-class Americans, she suggests; this sacralization was a way of resisting what they perceived as the relentless corruption of human values by the marketplace.
In stressing the cultural determinants of a child’s worth, Zelizer takes issue with practitioners of the new “sociological economics,” who have analyzed such traditionally sociological topics as crime, marriage, education, and health solely in terms of their economic determinants. Allowing only a small role for cultural forces in the form of individual “preferences,” these sociologists tend to view all human behaviors as directed primarily by the principle of maximizing economic gain. Zelizer is highly critical of this approach, and emphasizes instead the opposite phenomenon: the power of social values to transform price. As children became more valuable in emotional terms, she argues, their “exchange” or “surrender” value on the market, that is, the conversion of their intangible worth into cash terms, became much greater.

1. It can be inferred from the passage that accidental-death damage awards in America during the nineteenth century tended to be based principally on the

(A) earnings of the person at time of death
(B) wealth of the party causing the death
(C) degree of culpability of the party causing the death
(D) amount of money that had been spent on the person killed
(E) amount of suffering endured by the family of the person killed

2. It can be inferred from the passage that in the early 1800’s children were generally regarded by their families as individuals who

(A) needed enormous amounts of security and affection
(B) required constant supervision while working
(C) were important to the economic well-being of a family
(D) were unsuited to spending long hours in school
(E) were financial burdens assumed for the good of society

3. Which of the following alternative explanations of the change in the cash value of children would be most likely to be put forward by sociological economists as they are described in the passage?

(A) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because parents began to increase their emotional investment in the upbringing of their children.
(B) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because their expected earnings over the course of a lifetime increased greatly.
(C) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because the spread of humanitarian ideals resulted in a wholesale reappraisal of the worth of an individual.
(D) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because compulsory education laws reduced the supply, and thus raised the costs, of available child labor.
(E) The cash value of children rose during the nineteenth century because of changes in the way negligence law assessed damages in accidental death cases.

4. The primary purpose of the passage is to

(A) review the literature in a new academic sub-field
(B) present the central thesis of a recent book
(C) contrast two approaches to analyzing historical change
(D) refute a traditional explanation of a social phenomenon
(E) encourage further work on a neglected historical topic

5. It can be inferred from the passage that which of the following statements was true of American families over the course of the nineteenth century?

(A) The average size of families grew considerably.
(B) The percentage of families involved in industrial work declined dramatically.
(C) Family members became more emotionally bonded to one another.
(D) Family members spent an increasing amount of time working with each other.
(E) Family members became more economically dependent on each other.

6. Zelizer refers to all of the following as important influences in changing the assessment of children’s worth EXCEPT changes in

(A) the mortality rate
(B) the nature of industry
(C) the nature of the family
(D) attitudes toward reform movements
(E) attitudes toward the marketplace

7. Which of the following would be most consistent with the practices of sociological economics as these practices are described in the passage?

(A) Arguing that most health-care professionals enter the field because they believe it to be the most socially useful of any occupation
(B) Arguing that most college students choose majors that they believe will lead to the most highly paid jobs available to them
(C) Arguing that most decisions about marriage and divorce are based on rational assessments of the likelihood that each partner will remain committed to the relationship
(D) Analyzing changes in the number of people enrolled in colleges and universities as a function of changes in the economic health of these institutions
(E) Analyzing changes in the ages at which people get married as a function of a change in the average number of years that young people have lived away from their parents


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