Logical Reasoning MCQ Set 21

Smoking in bed has long been the main cause of home fires. Despite a significant decline in cigarette smoking in the last two decades, there has been no comparable decline in the number of people killed in home fires.
Each one of the following statements, if true over the last two decades, helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy above EXCEPT:

1. Compared to other types of home fires, home fires caused by smoking in bed usually cause relatively little damage before they are extinguished.
2. Home fires caused by smoking in bed often break out after the home's occupants have fallen asleep.
3. Smokers who smoke in bed tend to be heavy smokers who are less likely to quit smoking than are smokers who do not smoke in bed.
4. An increasing number of people have been killed in home fires that started in the kitchen.
5. Population densities have increased, with the result that one home fire can cause more deaths than in previous decades.

Mrs. Mason is gifted with psychic powers that enable her to foretell future events. In the past, Mrs. Mason has predicted such actual events as the election of President Clinton, the stock market crash of 1987, and the St. Louis Cardinals' 1982 World Series victory. These are just a few of Mrs. Mason's accurate predictions.
The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating the strength of the argument above?

1. What percentage of Mrs. Mason's predictions has come true?
2. Could the election of President Reagan have been predicted without the help of psychic powers?
3. What is the actual mechanism by which Mrs. Mason's psychic powers are supposed to operate?
4. How long before the events in question did Mrs. Mason make her accurate predictions?
5. Do most scientists accept the idea that the power to predict the future through psychic means really exists?

An ingredient in coffee, known as RTC, has been found to inactivate common cold viruses in experiments. In previous experiments, researchers found that inactivated common cold viruses can convert healthy cells into cancer cells. It can be concluded that the use of coffee can cause cancer.
Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

1. Several teams of scientists performed the various experiments, and all of the teams had similar results.
2. The carcinogenic effect of RTC could be neutralized by the other ingredients found in coffee.
3. When RTC kills common cold viruses it weakens the immune system, and it might thus diminish the body's ability to fight other viruses, including viruses linked to cancers.
4. If chemists modify the structure of RTC, RTC can be safely incorporated into medigreions to prevent the common cold.
5. To lessen the undesirable side effects of chemotherapy, the use of coffee has been recommended for cancer patients who are free of the common cold virus.

Jack Bygrave is an executive at a major South African diamond company that produces 2% of the world's total annual diamond production. The CFO is anxious to maximize revenues and increase sales. Bygrave, however, believes that increased production would only drive down the world price of diamonds and lower revenues.
Which of the following represents the logical flaw in Bygrave's reasoning?

1. Jack connects the price of unrefined diamonds and the price of jewelry-quality diamonds.
2. He assumes that production goals are similar to financial goals.
3. He assumes that the supply produced by a single company can significantly alter the aggregate supply for the market.
4. He assumes that seasonal and long term supply are proportional.
5. He correlates long-term and short-term demand.

The crux of creativity resides in the ability to manufacture variations on a theme. If we look at the history of science, for instance, we see that every idea is built upon a thousand related ideas. Careful analysis leads us to understand that what we choose to call a new theme or a new discovery is itself always and without exception some sort of variation, on a deep level, of previous themes.
If all of the statements in the passage are true, each of the following must also be true EXCEPT:

1. A lack of ability to manufacture a variation on a previous theme connotes a lack of creativity
2. No scientific idea is entirely independent of all other ideas.
3. Careful analysis of a specific variation can reveal previous themes of which it is a variation.
4. All great scientific discoverers have been able to manufacture a variation on a theme.
5. Some new scientific discoveries do not represent, on a deep level, a variation on previous themes.

Studies of fatal automobile accidents reveal that, in the majority of cases in which one occupant of an automobile is killed while another survives, it is the passenger, not the driver, who is killed. It is ironic that the innocent passenger should suffer for the driver's carelessness, while the driver often suffers only minor injuries or none at all.
Which of the following is an assumption underlying the reasoning in the passage above?

1. In most fatal automobile accidents, the driver of a car in which an occupant is killed is at fault.
2. Drivers of automobiles are rarely killed in auto accidents
3. Most deaths in fatal automobile accidents are suffered by occupants of cars rather than by pedestrians.
4. Auto safety experts should increase their efforts to provide protection for those in the passenger seats of automobiles.
5. Automobile passengers sometimes play a contributing role in causing auto accidents.