Friday, 20 February 2015

FEB 20 CRITICAL REASONING - QUESTION TYPES - CONTD.



There is little correlation between CEO compensation and the company's performance. If it were so, the companies that paid their CEOs the most would have highest growth in profits, revenue, and stock price. However, most of companies that have performed best in terms of profit, revenue, and stock price growth over the last 2 decades have been the ones that have been led by their founders.

Which of the following can be inferred from the passage above?
A. None of the top performing companies over the past 2 decades have been led by CEO's who are not founders of the company.
B. A CEO who is extremely well paid is probably not as much motivated since he/she does not expect to be compensated higher.
C. A company that pays its CEO a very high compensation is equally likely to perform as well as or worse than a company that does not compensate its CEO as well.
D. CEOs who are also Founders of the company do not get paid as much as CEOs who are not.
E. If a company is not led by a founder, it will not be a top performing company in the future.

# 5 and # 6

Experia Inc , one of the pioneers in the online retailing in the cosmetics business, does not have a physical presence and sells all its products through its website. While evaluating its various marketing channels to make the best use of its funds, the company has discovered that it attracts two times as many visitors for every dollar spent on Google than on Cosmetico, an online magazine. The company also found that the average purchase of a customer does not depend on the fact whether he/she came through Google or the magazine. The company has, therefore, decided to shift some of its marketing funds from the magazine to Google.

Which of the following most strongly undermines the ability of the company's plan to increase its profits?
A. An average reader of a Cosmetico magazine has income that is several times greater than the income of an average Google user
B. The conversion ratio from visitors to customers is several times higher in case of Cosmetico than in case of Google
C. Last time, when the company shifted more of its resources from Cosmetico to Google, it resulted in an immediate increase in its sales
D. Given the large presence of Google across various geographies, the visitors that come from Google are much more spread geographically than those who come from Cosmetico.
E. By investing time and money on writing articles in Comimetico, Experia can reduce its customer acquisition costs to half to what they are now. 

Which of the following casts the most doubt on the ability of the plan to achieve its objective of increasing the sales of the company?
A. Whereas almost all online retailers advertise their products on Google, there are only a few retailers, especially in the cosmetics business, which use Cosmetico as a marketing channel
B. In the past, it has been seen that in case of customer originating from Cosmetico that such customers become regular customers of the company and make most of their latter purchases by directly visiting the company's website.
C. The average order size of a customer depends more on the product line of the company than any characteristic of the customer
D. The average monthly costs of advertising at Google is just a small fraction of the average monthly costs of advertising at Cosmetico
E. It has been observed that the customers who come through Google are generally more satisfied with the Experia's products than customers who come from Cosmetico and the former also praise the Experia's products on various online forums while the latter do not.


# 6

Technological improvements and reduced equipment costs have made converting solar energy directly into
electricity far more cost-efficient in the last decade. However, the threshold of economic viability for solar power
(that is, the price per barrel to which oil would have to rise in order for new solar power plants to be more
economical than new oil-fired power plants) is unchanged at thirty-five dollars.
Which of the following, if true, does most to help explain why the increased cost-efficiency of solar power has
not decreased its threshold of economic viability?
(A) The cost of oil has fallen dramatically.
(B) The reduction in the cost of solar-power equipment has occurred despite increased raw material costs
for that equipment.
(C) Technological changes have increased the efficiency of oil-fired power plants.
(D) Most electricity is generated by coal-fired or nuclear, rather than oil-fired, power plants.
(E) When the price of oil increases, reserves of oil not previously worth exploiting become economically
viable

# 7

Journalist: In physics journals, the number of articles reporting the results of experiments involving particle
accelerators was lower last year than it had been in previous years. Several of the particle accelerators at major
research institutions were out of service the year before last for repairs, so it is likely that the low number of
articles was due to the decline in availability of particle accelerators.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the journalist's argument?
(A) Every article based on experiments with particle accelerators that was submitted for publication last year
actually was published.
(B) The average time scientists must wait for access to a particle accelerator has declined over the last
several years.
(C) The number of physics journals was the same last year as in previous years.
(D) Particle accelerators can be used for more than one group of experiments in any given year.
(E) Recent changes in the editorial policies of several physics journals have decreased the likelihood that
articles concerning particle-accelerator research will be accepted for publication.

#8

Dairy farmers in the United States have been paying higher prices each year for essential components of production, such as feed for the cattle, fuel for farm equipment, and electricity for lights and machinery. At the same time, the amount the farmer receives for the milk, while fluctuating at times, is essentially the same as it was five years ago when the components of production were much less expensive. Many dairy farmers were just able to make a profit five years ago.

The statements above, if true, most strongly support which of the following conclusions?

A)Unless they have found other ways to cut expenses, some dairy farmers are no longer making a profit.
B)Consumption of milk, cheese, and other dairy products has dropped over the past five years.
C)The price of feed for cattle has risen because of the increased cost of fuel used to power the equipment needed to grow the feed.
D)International supplies of milk have increased, causing the price that U.S. dairy farmers are paid for their milk to stay low, despite increased costs of production.
E)The price paid by the consumer for milk, cheese, and ice cream has not changed over the past five years.


#9

Most homeowners' efforts to rid their gardens of dandelions depend almost exclusively on commercially available chemical herbicides. Such herbicides have a lethal effect only on the fully mature dandelion, but not on the seedlings of the plant, which at any given time outnumber the mature plants nearly twenty to one.

If one wished to rid one's garden completely of dandelions using only commercially available herbicides, one would most need to know the answer to which one of the following questions?
A. How long does the average fully mature dandelion live? 
B. What is the length of the average life of a dandelion from seed to mature plant?
C. What percentage of dandelions in a garden are in the seedling stage? 
D. Is there a period during which a dandelion is fully mature, but has not yet released its immature seeds?
E. How many seeds will the average mature dandelion produce?

#10

It is ludicrous to assert that the math department's new policy, allowing the use of nonprogrammable calculators during exams, is discriminatory. Though a calculator can be expensive, and some students will not be able to purchase one, the department is not requiring that students use one, it is only allowing them to do so if they desire. Thus, any student who does not purchase a calculator for use on his exams will not be penalized; he or she will be no worse off at exam time than he or she was prior to the policy change.

To which of the following would the opponents of the math department's new policy be most likely to refer, in an attempt to have the new policy abolished?
A. The difference in speed between a top-of-the-line calculator and a bottom-end one is significant.
B. Each individual student's performance is evaluated against the performance of his or her fellow students on math department exams.
C. The university student services department will make available to all students calculators that can be borrowed as library books are. 
D. Much of the math being tested on most of the exams in question is so complex that it requires a calculator-like mind to do the necessary computations.
E. When calculators were not allowed, more than half of all students failed their math exams.




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