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 – 3 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 – 3
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. One of the most useful social conventions is money, whose universality across societies is matched only by language. Unlike language, which is rooted in an innate ability, money is an artificial, human invention. Hence, it seems probable that the invention of money occurred independently in more than one society.
The argument’s conclusion is properly drawn if which one of the following is assumed?
(A) Some societies have been geographically isolated enough not to have been influenced by any other society.
(B) Language emerged independently in different societies at different times in human history.
(C) Universal features of human society that are not inventions are rooted in innate abilities.
(D) If money were not useful, it would not be so widespread.
(E) No human society that adopted the convention of money has since abandoned it.
2. Libel is defined as damaging the reputation of someone by making false statements. Ironically, strong laws against libel can make it impossible for anyone in the public eye to have a good reputation. For the result of strong libel laws is that, for fear of lawsuits, no one will say anything bad about public figures.
Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the reasoning in the argument?
(A) The absence of laws against libel makes it possible for everyone in the public eye to have a good reputation.
(B) Even if laws against libel are extremely strong and rigorously enforced, some public figures will acquire bad reputations.
(C) If one makes statements that one sincerely believes, then those statements should not be considered libelous even if they are in fact false and damaging to the reputation of a public figure.
(D) In countries with strong libel laws, people make negative statements about public figures only when such statements can be proved.
(E) Public figures can have good reputations only if there are other pub
3. Mammals cannot digest cellulose and therefore cannot directly obtain glucose from wood. Mushrooms can, however; and some mushrooms use cellulose to make highly branched polymers, the branches of which are a form of glucose called beta-glucans. Beta-glucan extracts from various types of mushrooms slow, reverse, or prevent the growth of cancerous tumors in mammals, and the antitumor activity of beta-glucans increases as the degree of branching increases. These extracts prevent tumor growth not by killing cancer cells directly but by increasing immune-cell activity.
Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?
(A) Mammals obtain no beneficial health effects from eating cellulose.
(B) If extracts from a type of mushroom slow, reverse, or prevent the growth of cancerous tumors in mammals, then the mushroom is capable of using cellulose to make beta-glucans.
(C) The greater the degree of branching of beta-glucans, the greater the degree of immune-cell activity it triggers in mammals.
(D) Immune-cell activity in mammals does not prevent tumor growth by killing cancer cells.
(E) Any organism capable of obtaining glucose from wood can use cellulose to make beta-glucans.
4. A law is successful primarily because the behavior it prescribes has attained the status of custom. Just as manners are observed not because of sanctions attached to them but because, through repetition, contrary behavior becomes unthinkable, so societal laws are obeyed not because the behavior is ethically required or because penalties await those who act otherwise, but because to act otherwise would be uncustomary.
Which one of the following comparisons is utilized by the argument?
(A) As with manners and other customs, laws vary from society to society.
(B) As with manners, the primary basis for a society to consider when adopting a law is custom.
(C) As with manners, the main factor accounting for compliance with laws is custom.
(D) As with manners, most laws do not prescribe behavior that is ethically required.
(E) As with manners, most laws do not have strict penalties awaiting those who transgress them.
5. Mary to Jamal: You acknowledge that as the legitimate owner of this business I have the legal right to sell it whenever I wish. But also you claim that because loyal employees will suffer if I sell it, I therefore have no right to do so. Obviously, your statements taken together are absurd.
Mary’s reasoning is most vulnerable to the criticism that she
(A) overlooks the possibility that when Jamal claims that she has no right to sell the business, he simply means she has no right to do so at this time
(B) overlooks the possibility that her employees also have rights related to the sale of the business
(C) provides no evidence for the claim that she does have a right to sell the business
(D) overlooks the possibility that Jamal is referring to two different kinds of right
(E) attacks Jamal’s character rather than his argument
6. Since there is no survival value in an animal’s having an organ that is able to function when all its other organs have broken down to such a degree that the animal dies, it is a result of the efficiency of natural selection that no organ is likely to evolve in such a way that it greatly outlasts the body’s other organs.
Of the following, which one illustrates a principle that is most similar to the principle illustrated by the passage?
(A) A store in a lower-income neighborhood finds that it is unable to sell its higher-priced goods and so stocks them only when ordered by a customer.
(B) The body of an animal with a deficient organ is often able to compensate for that deficiency when other organs perform the task the deficient one normally performs.
(C) One car model produced by an automobile manufacturer has a life expectancy that is so much longer than its other models that its great popularity requires the manufacturer to stop producing some of the other models.
(D) Athletes occasionally overdevelop some parts of their bodies to such a great extent that other parts of their bodies are more prone to injury as a result.
(E) Automotive engineers find that it is not cost-effective to manufacture a given automobile part of such high quality that it outlasts all other parts of the automobile, as doing so would not raise the overall quality of the automobile.
7. Commentator: If a political administration is both economically successful and successful at protecting individual liberties, then it is an overall success. Even an administration that fails to care for the environment may succeed overall if it protects individual liberties. So far, the present administration has not cared for the environment but has successfully protected individual liberties.
If all of the statements above are true, then which one of the following must be true?
(A) The present administration is economically successful.
(B) The present administration is not an overall success.
(C) If the present administration is economically successful, then it is an overall success.
(D) If the present administration had been economically successful, it would have cared for the environment.
(E) If the present administration succeeds at environmental protection, then it will be an overall success.
8. The legislature is considering a proposed bill that would prohibit fishing in Eagle Bay. Despite widespread concern over the economic effect this ban would have on the local fishing industry, the bill should be enacted. The bay has one of the highest water pollution levels in the nation, and a recent study of the bay’s fish found that 80 percent of them contained toxin levels that exceed governmental safety standards. Continuing to permit fishing in Eagle Bay could thus have grave effects on public health.
The argument proceeds by presenting evidence that
(A) the toxic contamination of fish in Eagle Bay has had grave economic effects on the local fishing industry
(B) the moral principle that an action must be judged on the basis of its foreseeable effects is usually correct
(C) the opponents of the ban have failed to weigh properly its foreseeable negative effects against its positive ones
(D) failure to enact the ban would carry with it unacceptable risks for the public welfare
(E) the ban would reduce the level of toxins in the fish in Eagle Bay
9. Vandenburg: This art museum is not adhering to its purpose. Its founders intended it to devote as much attention to contemporary art as to the art of earlier periods, but its collection of contemporary art is far smaller than its other collections.
Simpson: The relatively small size of the museum’s contemporary art collection is appropriate. It’s an art museum, not an ethnographic museum designed to collect every style of every period. Its contemporary art collection is small because its curators believe that there is little high-quality contemporary art.
Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the reasoning in Simpson’s response to Vandenburg?
(A) An art museum should collect only works that its curators consider to be of high artistic quality.
(B) An art museum should not collect any works that violate the purpose defined by the museum’s founders.
(C) An art museum’s purpose need not be to collect every style of every period.
(D) An ethnographic museum’s purpose should be defined according to its curators’ beliefs.
(E) The intentions of an art museum’s curators should not determine what is collected by that museum.
10. Over the last five years, every new major alternative-energy initiative that initially was promised government funding has since seen that funding severely curtailed. In no such case has the government come even close to providing the level of funds initially earmarked for these projects. Since large corporations have made it a point to discourage alternative-energy projects, it is likely that the corporations’ actions influenced the government’s funding decisions.
Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the reasoning above?
(A) For the past two decades, most alternative-energy initiatives have received little or no government funding.
(B) The funding initially earmarked for a government project is always subject to change, given the mechanisms by which the political process operates.
(C) The only research projects whose government funding has been severely curtailed are those that large corporations have made it a point to discourage.
(D) Some projects encouraged by large corporations have seen their funding severely curtailed over the last five years.
(E) All large corporations have made it a point to discourage some forms of research.
Answer key:
1. A
2. E
3. C
4. C
5. D
6. E
7. C
8. D
9. A
10. C
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.
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