All practice questions

Art conservators examining fifteenth-century panel paintings established the following facts:

• Every panel painting executed with egg tempera contains proteinaceous binding media.
• Any panel painting containing proteinaceous binding media that has been subjected to prolonged humidity exhibits micro-cracking across its varnish layer.
• No panel painting in the Sforza collection that exhibits micro-cracking across its varnish layer was executed with oil-based glazes.

Statement: If a panel painting in the Sforza collection was executed with egg tempera and has been subjected to prolonged humidity, it was not executed with oil-based glazes.

Passage A
Philosophers of science have long debated the epistemic status of thought experiments. Empiricists typically maintain that a thought experiment is merely an elaborate way of unpacking the implications of prior empirical observations. According to this view, when Galileo imagined dropping two connected stones to refute Aristotelian physics, he was not accessing new facts about the universe through pure reason. Rather, he was exposing a logical contradiction within the existing Aristotelian framework using knowledge already acquired through experience. Thought experiments, therefore, are valuable pedagogical and heuristic devices. They help us reorganize our conceptual commitments and recognize the consequences of our existing data, but they cannot transcend the empirical data upon which they are built. They yield no novel empirical knowledge about the physical world.

Passage B
The notion that thought experiments are nothing more than deductive arguments in disguise fails to account for their actual role in scientific revolutions. While it is true that thought experiments do not involve new sensory input, they frequently produce genuinely new empirical knowledge about the natural world. Consider Einstein's famous elevator thought experiment, which established the equivalence principle. This was not merely a reorganization of existing Newtonian concepts; it fundamentally reconfigured our understanding of gravity and acceleration, predicting phenomena that were previously unconsidered. By pushing our conceptual frameworks to their logical extremes in imagined scenarios, thought experiments allow us to perceive underlying physical realities that direct observation obscures. They act as a species of a priori empirical reasoning, granting us access to the laws of nature independent of new physical experiments.

Based on the passages, which one of the following most accurately describes a point of disagreement between the author of Passage A and the author of Passage B?

Economist: A municipal transit authority recently introduced dynamic fare pricing on its subway lines, increasing ticket prices during morning peak hours while substantially discounting fares immediately before and after the rush period. Over the following six months, train overcrowding during the morning peak period fell by 18 percent. Because total daily subway ridership remained unchanged across the system over this six-month period, transit officials concluded that the pricing differential successfully caused a substantial portion of peak-hour commuters to shift their travel to off-peak hours.

Which of the following are assumptions on which the transit officials' argument depends? (Select all that apply.)

To reduce light pollution, several rural resort towns recently replaced conventional globe streetlights with full-cutoff fixtures, which direct all emitted light downward. Over the two years following the replacement, evening retail sales in the commercial centers of these towns rose by 14 percent, while evening sales in neighboring towns that retained conventional lighting remained unchanged. Researchers concluded that the clearer view of the night sky created by the reduced upward glare made evening strolls through commercial districts more attractive to visitors, leading to increased retail spending. Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the researchers' conclusion?

Passage A
The persistence of "legal fictions"—assumptions of fact recognized by courts to be false, such as the notion that a corporation is a "person" or that an 'attractive nuisance' implies a landowner's invitation to trespassing children—is often misunderstood by laypersons and legal purists alike as mere judicial obfuscation. In reality, these fictions are indispensable mechanisms for common law evolution. When faced with unprecedented societal or technological circumstances where the strict application of existing precedent would yield clearly inequitable results, courts employ fictions to intuitively bridge the gap between archaic rules and modern necessities. This pragmatic approach allows the law to adapt organically without the destabilizing shock of suddenly overturning established doctrines. By preserving the outward form and vocabulary of precedent, legal fictions maintain the structural continuity that is absolutely essential to the rule of law. The alternative is deeply impractical: waiting for legislative bodies, which are notoriously slow, heavily bureaucratic, and frequently paralyzed by partisan gridlock, to comprehensively modernize statutory frameworks. Relying solely on this legislative mechanism would routinely leave vulnerable litigants without timely or equitable redress. Thus, the legal fiction operates not to deceive the public, but to facilitate immediate justice within the rigid structural constraints of historical jurisprudence.

Passage B
The increasing judicial reliance on legal fictions represents a profound, albeit subtle, threat to the foundational integrity of democratic legal systems. Proponents routinely defend these artificial constructs as necessary, pragmatic workarounds for outdated laws, arguing that they serve the immediate interests of justice when the legislature lags behind societal change. However, this utilitarian defense fundamentally misapprehends the constitutional separation of powers. When a judge utilizes a legal fiction to stretch a statute or precedent far beyond its original, textually apparent meaning, the judge is not merely interpreting the law; they are quietly and unilaterally legislating from the bench. This practice is inherently deceptive because it deliberately masks the true policy considerations driving the court's decision under the guise of established precedent. If a law is genuinely inadequate for modern contexts, the proper remedy in a democratic society is rigorous legislative reform, regardless of how cumbersome, slow, or inefficient that process might be. When judges use fictions to circumvent this process in the name of swift equity, they successfully insulate the law from public accountability and democratic debate. Furthermore, legal fictions inevitably breed jurisprudential incoherence. Because these rulings are fundamentally untethered from factual reality, they provide no predictable, logical principles for future cases, ironically undermining the very systemic stability their proponents claim they preserve. True stability in the law requires absolute transparency, where judicial reasoning is explicitly articulated rather than obscured by artificial constructs.

Based on the passages, which of the following best describes how the author of Passage B would most likely respond to the assertion in Passage A that relying solely on legislative bodies to modernize laws would "routinely leave litigants without timely or equitable redress"?

Ecologist: Popular accounts of subterranean mycorrhizal networks frequently claim that mature trees actively sacrifice carbon reserves to nurture unrelated seedlings through cooperative underground fungal links. However, isotopic tracing reveals that fungi strictly regulate carbon-nutrient exchanges to maximize their own metabolic fitness, withholding resources when exchange rates are disadvantageous. Furthermore, seedlings receive carbon only when they provide surplus nitrogen in return. Thus, the underground transfer of resources between trees is not an evolved system of communal cooperation, but rather an incidental byproduct of self-interested resource trading among independent organisms.

In one concise phrase, what is the main conclusion of the ecologist's argument?

Consider the following argument:

Ecologist: Over the past fifty years, the upper treeline of mountain birch forests in the Scandes range has shifted upward by an average of eighty meters. While many researchers attribute this migration entirely to rising regional summer temperatures prolonging the vegetative growing season, birch seedling survival at the alpine margin is primarily limited by herbivory from mountain hare populations rather than by cold temperatures. Because regional wildlife monitoring records confirm that mountain hare populations in these specific valleys experienced a sharp, sustained collapse starting sixty years ago, this release from seedling herbivory, rather than climatic warming, is the principal cause of the treeline ascent.

Statement: If true, the discovery that in adjacent valleys where mountain hare populations remained stable under hunting bans, the mountain birch treeline did not advance upward over the past fifty years despite experiencing identical increases in summer temperatures, strengthens the ecologist's argument.

Agricultural scientists monitoring soil chemistry across regional test plots established the following conditions:

• Any soil amendment containing mycorrhizal inoculants enhances phosphorus uptake in legume crops only if the soil pH remains strictly below 7.0.
• Every experimental plot treated with calcified biochar maintains a soil pH of 7.4 or higher throughout the growing season.
• All experimental plots in the valley trial were treated with calcified biochar.
• During the previous season, several experimental plots in the valley trial produced legume crops that exhibited enhanced phosphorus uptake.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must also be true on the basis of them?

Passage A
The profound economic divergence between Western Europe and East Asia during the late eighteenth century cannot be explained by differences in available resources. Both regions possessed highly developed commercial networks and sophisticated artisanal traditions. Rather, the decisive catalyst was the emergence of distinctive institutional frameworks in the West. Specifically, the establishment of robust, legally enforceable property rights provided an unparalleled incentive structure for the accumulation of capital. In England, for instance, inventors could confidently invest into mechanization, secure in the knowledge that the fruits of their innovations would not be arbitrarily expropriated by the state. This legal predictability lowered the risks associated with industrial enterprises, fostering an environment where continuous, incremental technological refinement became economically rational rather than prohibitively risky.

Passage B
While legal frameworks undeniably facilitated the consolidation of wealth during the Industrial Revolution, elevating them to the primary cause of European industrialization obscures the fundamental material realities that differentiated Europe from other advanced agrarian economies. The sudden escape from the Malthusian constraints that had historically capped economic growth was driven by two ecological windfalls: the serendipitous geographic proximity of easily accessible, high-quality coal deposits, and the exploitation of the New World. Without the massive influx of raw materials from overseas colonies and the energy surplus provided by domestic coal, Europe’s institutional structures would merely have governed the distribution of a stagnant, agriculturally limited economic pie. It was the sudden availability of ghost acreage—land outside Europe providing necessary resources—that allowed European economies to sustain industrial growth without collapsing under ecological exhaustion.

Based on the passages, match each claim made by Passage A (left) with Author B's most likely evaluation of or response to that claim (right).

Paleoclimatologist: Many researchers assume that variations in stomatal density on fossilized leaves directly index ancient atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations. However, recent controlled botanical experiments demonstrate that ambient humidity and soil salinity induce alterations in stomatal density indistinguishable from those caused by carbon dioxide fluctuations. Therefore, stomatal density measurements from fossilized leaves cannot reliably serve as standalone proxies for prehistoric atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.

What is the primary conclusion of the paleoclimatologist's argument?

Geologist: Basaltic volcanic eruptions typically produce low-viscosity lava flows that pose minimal explosive hazard, whereas rhyolitic eruptions feature highly viscous lava that traps volatile gases, frequently generating explosive eruptions. A newly analyzed ancient deposit in the Karoo Basin consists of finely fragmented basaltic pyroclastic tephra rather than continuous lava sheets, proving that a violent explosive eruption of basaltic magma occurred there. Therefore, volatile gas content, rather than magma viscosity, must have been the primary determining factor in whether this Karoo Basin eruption was explosive.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the geologist's argument depends?

Agricultural Economist: In the province of Vallesia, smallholder tomato farmers historically suffered severe post-harvest crop losses due to fungal spoilage during transit. Three years ago, the regional agricultural ministry subsidized the distribution of solar-powered ventilated storage crates. Over the subsequent two years, recorded post-harvest tomato losses across the province fell by nearly 60 percent, leading the ministry to conclude that the crates were responsible for the improvement. However, during the exact same period, an unseasonably severe drought lowered ambient humidity throughout Vallesia's transport corridors. Because ambient fungal spore germination is heavily inhibited in arid conditions, the reduction in tomato spoilage was almost certainly caused by the drought rather than the ventilated crates.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the agricultural economist's argument?

Archaeologist: Excavations at the Bronze Age settlement of Tell el-Ajjul revealed a sharp increase in the proportion of ceramic storage jars lined with beeswax starting around 1400 BCE, coinciding with a severe, prolonged regional drought. Because beeswax acts as an effective impermeable sealant against evaporative water loss, researchers concluded that the inhabitants adopted beeswax lining specifically as a technological adaptation to conserve drinking water during the drought.

Statement: The finding that contemporary ceramic storage jars from neighboring settlements that did not experience the drought showed no increase in beeswax lining strengthens the researchers' conclusion.

Historian: Some political theorists maintain that the primary determinant of institutional stability in early modern states was administrative centralization. However, this view is untenable. Consider the Venetian Republic: throughout the sixteenth century, Venice maintained an exceptionally decentralized judicial and fiscal apparatus, yet it experienced virtually no major civil unrest or institutional collapse. If centralized administration were indeed the indispensable guarantor of state durability, then Venice should have succumbed to rapid disintegration during the protracted Mediterranean crises of that era. Instead, institutional continuity endured because civic loyalty was sustained through broad aristocratic consensus rather than coercive central bureaucracy.

Match each excerpt from the historian's argument with the specific argumentative role or logical function it serves.

Paleogeneticist: Critics argue that the extinction of Pleistocene megafauna across northern Eurasia was driven exclusively by abrupt climatic warming rather than human hunting pressure. However, this view fails to withstand scrutiny. Ice-core records establish that northern Eurasia underwent dozens of equally abrupt warming oscillations during earlier interglacial epochs without triggering widespread megafaunal collapse. Furthermore, recent radiometric dating demonstrates that megafaunal extinctions across distinct subregions coincided precisely with the documented arrival of anatomically modern humans, regardless of the local climatic conditions. Therefore, climatic warming alone is insufficient to account for the extinctions, and human hunting pressure was a decisive factor.

Based on the passage, arrange the logical stages of the paleogeneticist’s argument into the sequential order in which they establish the ultimate conclusion.

Consider the following argument from an evolutionary anthropologist:

Many researchers claim that the transition of early hominins to persistence hunting was driven primarily by mechanical improvements in bipedal gait efficiency. However, biomechanical reconstructions demonstrate that bipedal locomotion offers minimal metabolic savings over quadrupedal prey during sustained chases. Instead, specialized thermoregulatory adaptations—namely, dense eccrine sweat glands and cranial venous networks—enabled hominins to shed heat continuously during pursuits, whereas ungulates quickly suffer hyperthermia. Consequently, hominins achieved their pursuit advantage through superior thermoregulation rather than locomotive mechanics, proving that physiological cooling capacity was the primary evolutionary catalyst for persistence hunting.

Arrange the statements below to reflect the logical progression of the argument, starting from the premise refuting the competing hypothesis (1), moving to the supporting physiological premise (2), followed by the intermediate conclusion (3), and culminating in the author's ultimate main conclusion (4).

Anthropologist: Dental calculus from adult human remains at a 3,500-year-old steppe settlement contains beta-lactoglobulin peptides specifically matching horse milk. Because the equine skeletal remains found at the site lack bit wear on their teeth, some researchers hypothesize that these horses were wild animals hunted solely for game meat rather than managed livestock. However, the presence of equine milk proteins in the adult dental plaque conclusively proves that this community had domesticated horses and was practicing pastoral dairying.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the anthropologist's argument?

Ethicist: A standard defense of intellectual property rights over software algorithms holds that because creative labor produces economic utility, the creator is entitled to exclusive control over that utility. However, this principle implies that an artisan who discovers a more efficient bodily movement for laying masonry—which undeniably generates economic utility through creative effort—would likewise be entitled to forbid other builders from adopting that posture without permission. Since granting property rights over fundamental human movements would paralyze manual trades and is manifestly untenable, the premise that generating economic utility through creative labor alone justifies exclusive rights must be rejected.

Which of the following most accurately describes the ethicist's method of reasoning?

Linguist: Some structural grammarians argue that human linguistic syntax is determined strictly by innate neurological architecture rather than communicative function, citing evidence that several complex grammatical conventions do not enhance communicative efficiency. However, this conclusion is unearned. In traditional timber framing, master carpenters developed complex joining techniques that exceed what is strictly necessary for basic structural support, yet these designs emerged entirely in response to practical architectural demands over centuries of building. Thus, the observation that certain syntactic rules appear inefficient does not demonstrate that syntax evolved independently of functional communicative needs.

Which of the following most accurately describes the method of reasoning employed in the linguist's argument?

For each of the incomplete arguments below, which corresponding assumption, if established, logically guarantees the truth of its conclusion? Match each argument with its sufficient deductive bridge.