A
The company should make shipping books its highest priority.
B
By increasing its efficiency, the company can maintain its competitive edge.
C
The company will be outsold if it does not maintain its competitors’ high level of organization.
D
It is imperative that the company ship fitness and exercise books on time.
E
The company should do whatever is required in order to adopt its competitors’ shipping practices.
Expert: What criteria distinguish addictive substances from nonaddictive ones? Some have suggested that any substance that at least some habitual users can cease to use is nonaddictive. However, if this is taken to be the sole criterion of nonaddictiveness, some substances that most medical experts classify as prime examples of addictive substances would be properly deemed nonaddictive. Any adequate set of criteria for determining a substance’s addictiveness must embody the view, held by these medical experts, that a substance is addictive only if withdrawal from its habitual use causes most users extreme psychological and physiological difficulty.
Summary
Some people say that any substance that at least some habitual users can stop using is nonaddictive. But this is wrong.
In order to be addictive, it must be the case that withdrawal from habitual use causes most users extreme psychological and physiological difficulty.
Very Strongly Supported Conclusions
Just because some habitual users can stop using a substance does not imply that substance is not addictive.
If it’s not the case that most users of a substance experience extreme psychological and physiological difficulty after stopping the habitual use of the substance, then the substance is not addictive.
A
If a person experiences extreme psychological and physiological difficulty in ceasing to use a substance habitually, that substance is addictive.
The stimulus never tells us what is sufficient to imply something is addictive. The criteria set forth by the author tells us what is REQUIRED (”only if”) to be addictive. But meeting the requirement described does not, by itself, establish that a substance is addictive.
B
Fewer substances would be deemed addictive than are deemed so at present if an adequate definition of “addictive” were employed.
The stimulus does not compare the number of substances deemed addictive now to the number that would be deemed addictive under a different definition. We don’t know whether the current definition is more or less restrictive than the one proposed by the author.
C
A substance that some habitual users can cease to use with little or no psychological or physiological difficulty is addictive only if that is not true for most habitual users.
Must be true based on the last sentence. In order to be addictive, then for most habitual users, when they stop using the substance, they should experience extreme psych. & phys. difficulty. So even if some habitual users can stop without that difficulty, in order to be addictive, we still need most users to experience that difficulty when stopping use of the substance.
D
A chemical substance habitually used by a person throughout life without significant psychological or physiological difficulty is nonaddictive.
Not supported, because we don’t know whether most habitual users who stop using the substance described in (D) don’t experience extreme psych. + phys. difficulty. (D) says nothing about whether stopping use causes difficulty.
E
“Addiction” is a term that is impossible to define with precision.
Not supported. The author tells us at least one thing that is required for addictiveness. We have no reason to think the author believes we can’t come up with a precise definition.
A
It is the only conclusion that the argument attempts to establish.
B
It is one of two unrelated conclusions, each of which the same premises are used to support.
C
It is a general principle from which the argument’s conclusion follows as a specific instance.
D
It describes a phenomenon for which the rest of the argument offers an explanation.
E
Premises are used to support it, and it is used to support the main conclusion.
Commentator: Recently, articles criticizing the environmental movement have been appearing regularly in newspapers. According to Winslow, this is due not so much to an antienvironmental bias among the media as to a preference on the part of newspaper editors for articles that seem “daring” in that they seem to challenge prevailing political positions. It is true that editors like to run antienvironmental pieces mainly because they seem to challenge the political orthodoxy. But serious environmentalism is by no means politically orthodox, and antienvironmentalists can hardly claim to be dissidents, however much they may have succeeded in selling themselves as renegades.
Summary
Winslow believes that articles criticizing the environmental movement have been appearing in newspapers due to the desire of newspaper editors for articles that seem to challenge prevailing political positions. The commentator concedes that editors like to run antienvironmental pieces primarily because they like to challenge prevailing positions. But the commentator asserts that, despite what news editors might think, environmentalism isn’t actually the prevailing position.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
Newspaper editors are selecting some stories on the basis of an inaccurate understanding of what is a prevailing position.
At least some people have an inaccurate understanding about the prevalence of serious environmentalism.
A
Winslow is correct about the preference of newspaper editors for controversial articles.
Strongly supported. The commentator acknowledges that editors like to run antienvironmental pieces because they like to challenge what they perceive to be prevailing positions. This preference can be characterized as a preference for “controversial” pieces.
B
Critics of environmentalism have not successfully promoted themselves as renegades.
Unsupported. The commentator asserts that antienvironmentalists are not actually dissidents, “however much they may have succeeded” in selling themselves as renegades. This acknowledges the critics may have succeeded in portraying themselves as renegades.
C
Winslow’s explanation is not consonant with the frequency with which critiques of environmentalism are published.
Unsupported. The commentator supports Winslow’s explanation about why newspaper editors have regularly published antienvironmentalist pieces. So, the stimulus doesn’t support a claim that the explanation is inconsistent with anything.
D
The position attacked by critics of environmentalism is actually the prevailing political position.
Antisupported. The commentator says that serious environmentalism is not the prevailing position. So, the position attacked by critics of environmentalism is not the prevailing position.
E
Serious environmentalism will eventually become a prevailing political position.
Unsupported. The commentator doesn’t say anything about the future of serious environmentalism.
A
Unlike treatment Y, treatment X has produced harmful side effects in laboratory animals.
B
There are other illnesses for which treatment Y is more effective than treatment X.
C
Until recently, treatment X was more expensive than treatment Y.
D
Treatment Y is prescribed more often by physicians than treatment X.
E
A third treatment, treatment Z, is even quicker and less expensive than treatment X.
For example, nuclear plants might last longer or need far less maintenance than conventional plants. He also assumes that the lower ongoing fuel costs of nuclear plants won't offset the higher initial building costs.
A
Safety regulations can increase the costs of running both conventional and nuclear power plants.
B
Conventional power plants spend more time out of service than do nuclear power plants.
C
The average life expectancy of a nuclear power plant is shorter than that of a conventional one.
D
Nuclear power plants cost less to build today than they cost to build when their technology was newly developed.
E
As conventional fuels become scarcer their cost will increase dramatically, which will increase the cost of running a conventional power plant.
A
presumes, without providing justification, that sports have some educational value
B
fails to consider that the total amount of money spent on education may be much greater than the total spent on sports
C
fails to consider both that most teachers are not in the classroom during the summer and that most professional athletes do not play all year
D
compares teachers’ salaries only to those of professional athletes rather than also to the salaries of other professionals
E
fails to compare salaries for teachers in the pundit’s society to salaries for teachers in other societies
Some fields of math relevant to a problem may have been discovered many years in the past.