After successfully completing the CAT 2016 sprint series and the SNAP 2016 sprint series, we are back with the XAT 2017 – Critical Reasoning, Decision Making Marathon – 10 to boost your prep. This series will consist of 15 sets of questions that will test your reasoning skills and will enable you to do well in the crucial Decision Making section of XAT 2017.
You may check out the entire series here: XAT 2017 – Critical Reasoning, Decision Making Marathon
XAT 2017 – Critical Reasoning, Decision Making Marathon – 10
Directions: The questions in this section are based on the reasoning contained in brief statements or passages. For some questions, more than one of the choices could conceivably answer the question. However, you are to choose the best answer; that is, the response that most accurately and completely answers the question. You should not make assumptions that are by commonsense standards implausible, superfluous, or incompatible with the passage. After you have chosen the best answer, blacken the corresponding space on your answer sheet.
1. A survey of address changes filed with post offices and driver’s license bureaus over the last ten years has established that households moving out of the city of Weston outnumbered households moving into the city two to one. Therefore, we can expect that next year’s census, which counts all residents regardless of age, will show that the population of Weston has declined since the last census ten years ago.
Which one of the following, if true, most helps strengthen the argument?
(A) Within the past decade many people both moved into the city and also moved out of it.
(B) Over the past century any census of Weston showing a population loss was followed ten years later by a census showing a population gain.
(C) Many people moving into Weston failed to notify either the post office or the driver’s license bureau that they had moved to the city.
(D) Most adults moving out of Weston were parents who had children living with them, whereas most adults remaining in or moving into the city were older people who lived alone.
(E) Most people moving out of Weston were young adults who were hoping to begin a career elsewhere, whereas most adults remaining in or moving into the city had long-standing jobs in the city.
2. Psychologist: People tend to make certain cognitive errors when they predict how a given event would affect their future happiness. But people should not necessarily try to rid themselves of this tendency. After all, in a visual context, lines that are actually parallel often appear to people as if they converge. If a surgeon offered to restructure your eyes and visual cortex so that parallel lines would no longer ever appear to converge, it would not be reasonable to take the surgeon up on the offer.
The psychologist’s argument does which one of the following?
(A) attempts to refute a claim that a particular event is inevitable by establishing the possibility of an alternative event
(B) attempts to undermine a theory by calling into question an assumption on which the theory is based
(C) argues that an action might not be appropriate by suggesting that a corresponding action in an analogous situation is not appropriate
(D) argues that two situations are similar by establishing that the same action would be reasonable in each situation
(E) attempts to establish a generalization and then uses that generalization to argue against a particular action
3. Principle: Even if an art auction house identifies the descriptions in its catalog as opinions, it is guilty of misrepresentation if such a description is a deliberate attempt to mislead bidders.
Application: Although Healy’s, an art auction house, states that all descriptions in its catalog are opinions, Healy’s was guilty of misrepresentation when its catalog described a vase as dating from the mid-eighteenth century when it was actually a modern reproduction.
Which one of the following, if true, most justifies the above application of the principle?
(A) An authentic work of art from the mid-eighteenth century will usually sell for at least ten times more than a modern reproduction of a similar work from that period.
(B) Although pottery that is similar to the vase is currently extremely popular among art collectors, none of the collectors who are knowledgeable about such pottery were willing to bid on the vase.
(C) The stated policy of Healy’s is to describe works in its catalogs only in terms of their readily perceptible qualities and not to include any information about their age.
(D) Some Healy’s staff members believe that the auction house’s catalog should not contain any descriptions that have not been certified to be true by independent experts.
(E) Without consulting anyone with expertise in authenticating vases, Healy’s described the vase as dating from the mid-eighteenth century merely in order to increase its auction price.
4. Anthropologist: It was formerly believed that prehistoric Homo sapiens ancestors of contemporary humans interbred with Neanderthals, but DNA testing of a Neanderthal’s remains indicates that this is not the case. The DNA of contemporary humans is significantly different from that of the Neanderthal.
Which one of the following is an assumption required by the anthropologist’s argument?
(A) At least some Neanderthals lived at the same time and in the same places as prehistoric Homo sapiens ancestors of contemporary humans.
(B) DNA testing of remains is significantly less reliable than DNA testing of samples from living species.
(C) The DNA of prehistoric Homo sapiens ancestors of contemporary humans was not significantly more similar to that of Neanderthals than is the DNA of contemporary humans.
(D) Neanderthals and prehistoric Homo sapiens ancestors of contemporary humans were completely isolated from each other geographically.
(E) Any similarity in the DNA of two species must be the result of interbreeding.
5. Council member: The profits of downtown businesses will increase if more consumers live in the downtown area, and a decrease in the cost of living in the downtown area will guarantee that the number of consumers living there will increase. However, the profits of downtown businesses will not increase unless downtown traffic congestion decreases.
If all the council member’s statements are true, which one of the following must be true?
(A) If downtown traffic congestion decreases, the number of consumers living in the downtown area will increase.
(B) If the cost of living in the downtown area decreases, the profits of downtown businesses will increase.
(C) If downtown traffic congestion decreases, the cost of living in the downtown area will increase.
(D) If downtown traffic congestion decreases, the cost of living in the downtown area will decrease.
(E) If the profits of downtown businesses increase, the number of consumers living in the downtown area will increase.
6. On the Discount Phoneline, any domestic long-distance call starting between 9 A.M. and 5 P.M. costs 15 cents a minute, and any other domestic long-distance call costs 10 cents a minute. So any domestic long-distance call on the Discount Phoneline that does not cost 10 cents a minute costs 15 cents a minute.
The pattern of reasoning in which one of the following arguments is most similar to that in the argument above?
(A) If a university class involves extensive lab work, the class will be conducted in a laboratory; otherwise, it will be conducted in a normal classroom. Thus, if a university class does not involve extensive lab work, it will not be conducted in a laboratory.
(B) If a university class involves extensive lab work, the class will be conducted in a laboratory; otherwise, it will be conducted in a normal classroom. Thus, if a university class is not conducted in a normal classroom, it will involve extensive lab work.
(C) If a university class involves extensive lab work, the class will be conducted in a laboratory; otherwise, it will be conducted in a normal classroom. Thus, if a university class is conducted in a normal classroom, it will not be conducted in a laboratory.
(D) If a university class involves extensive lab work, the class will be conducted in a laboratory; otherwise, it will be conducted in a normal classroom. Thus, if a university class involves extensive lab work, it will not be conducted in a normal classroom.
(E) If a university class involves extensive lab work, the class will be conducted in a laboratory; otherwise, it will be conducted in a normal classroom. Thus, if a university class is not conducted in a normal classroom, it will be conducted in a laboratory.
7. One child pushed another child from behind, injuring the second child. The first child clearly understands the difference between right and wrong, so what was done was wrong if it was intended to injure the second child.
Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the reasoning in the argument?
(A) An action that is intended to harm another person is wrong only if the person who performed the action understands the difference between right and wrong.
(B) It is wrong for a person who understands the difference between right and wrong to intentionally harm another person.
(C) Any act that is wrong is done with the intention of causing harm.
(D) An act that harms another person is wrong if the person who did it understands the difference between right and wrong and did not think about whether the act would injure the other person.
(E) A person who does not understand the difference between right and wrong does not bear any responsibility for harming another person.
8. Researcher: Each subject in this experiment owns one car, and was asked to estimate what proportion of all automobiles registered in the nation are the same make as the subject’s car. The estimate of nearly every subject has been significantly higher than the actual national statistic for the make of that subject’s car. I hypothesize that certain makes of car are more common in some regions of the nation than in other regions; obviously, that would lead many people to overestimate how common their make of car is nationally. That is precisely the result found in this experiment, so certain makes of car must indeed be more common in some areas of the nation than in others.
Which one of the following most accurately expresses a reasoning flaw in the researcher’s argument?
(A) The argument fails to estimate the likelihood that most subjects in the experiment did not know the actual statistics about how common their make of car is nationwide.
(B) The argument treats a result that supports a hypothesis as a result that proves a hypothesis.
(C) The argument fails to take into account the possibility that the subject pool may come from a wide variety of geographical regions.
(D) The argument attempts to draw its main conclusion from a set of premises that are mutually contradictory.
(E) The argument applies a statistical generalization to a particular case to which it was not intended to apply.
9. In university towns, police issue far more parking citations during the school year than they do during the times when the students are out of town. Therefore, we know that most parking citations in university towns are issued to students.
Which one of the following is most similar in its flawed reasoning to the flawed reasoning in the argument above?
(A) We know that children buy most of the snacks at cinemas, because popcorn sales increase as the proportion of child moviegoers to adult moviegoers increases.
(B) We know that this houseplant gets more of the sunlight from the window, because it is greener than that houseplant.
(C) We know that most people who go to a university are studious because most of those people study while they attend the university.
(D) We know that consumers buy more fruit during the summer than they buy during the winter, because there are far more varieties of fruit available in the summer than in the winter.
(E) We know that most of the snacks parents buy go to other people’s children, because when other people’s children come to visit, parents give out more snacks than usual.
10. Counselor: Those who believe that criticism should be gentle rather than harsh should consider the following: change requires a motive, and criticism that is unpleasant provides a motive. Since harsh criticism is unpleasant, harsh criticism provides a motive. Therefore, only harsh criticism will cause the person criticized to change.
The reasoning in the counselor’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument
(A) infers that something that is sufficient to provide a motive is necessary to provide a motive
(B) fails to address the possibility that in some cases the primary goal of criticism is something other than bringing about change in the person being criticized
(C) takes for granted that everyone who is motivated to change will change
(D) confuses a motive for doing something with a motive for avoiding something
(E) takes the refutation of an argument to be sufficient to show that the argument’s conclusion is false
Answer key:
1. D
2. C
3. E
4. C
5. B
6. E
7. B
8. B
9. E
10. A
Meanwhile, for those who want to solve quality questions from past year XAT papers, you may check out our ongoing XAT 2017 Sprint Preparation Series.
What’s hot at Learningroots?
Crack MBA CET 2017 with CET toppers | TISS Mocks (6 mocks for Rs. 299 only) | 20 MBA CET 2017 mocks
