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Archaeologists recently discovered a high concentration of grinding stones at a 12,000-year-old settlement in the Zaran Valley, predating known agriculture in the region by 2,000 years. Residue analysis of these stones revealed trace amounts of wild cereal grains. Based on this, the lead researcher concluded that the valley's ancient inhabitants systematically processed and stored wild grains as a primary food source long before crop domestication. Which of the following statements, if true, would most strengthen the researcher's argument? Select all that apply.

Agronomists observing wild varieties of the montane scrub-oak have discovered that trees growing on the northern slopes of the Oakhaven range produce acorns with significantly thicker shells than those growing on the southern slopes. Over the last century, the northern slopes have experienced a steady increase in the population of the red-crested woodpecker, a bird that occasionally bores into acorns to extract nutrients. Since the red-crested woodpecker population has remained negligible on the southern slopes, the agronomists conclude that the increased presence of these woodpeckers has driven the evolutionary adaptation of thicker acorn shells in the northern scrub-oaks.

Which of the following are assumptions upon which the agronomists' argument depends? (Select all that apply)

An argument that draws a general conclusion about the effectiveness of a new teaching method by studying only schools that volunteered to implement the method avoids sampling bias as long as the sample size is sufficiently large.

Economist: To mitigate the economic stagnation caused by our aging workforce, the government recently introduced aggressive tax incentives for corporations that invest in automation technology. Proponents argue this will elevate overall industrial productivity. However, these incentives will actually exacerbate the current economic stagnation. To take advantage of these incentives, corporations will inevitably fund their automation investments by diverting capital away from employee training programs, which are currently the sole driver of productivity growth in our remaining workforce.

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

Last year, the city of Oakhaven banned the sale of sugary beverages in containers larger than 16 ounces, intending to reduce overall sugar consumption among its residents. However, a recent public health study reveals that in the year since the ban was implemented, the total volume of sugary beverages purchased and consumed by Oakhaven residents has increased significantly.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy described above?

For much of its history, American constitutional jurisprudence has grappled with the nondelegation doctrine, a principle rooted in the separation of powers which posits that Congress cannot constitutionally delegate its legislative authority to executive agencies. While foundational to the theoretical architecture of the Republic, strict adherence to this doctrine has been functionally dormant since the late 1930s. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld broad delegations of power, recognizing that an increasingly complex society necessitates a vast administrative state managed by executive branch experts. Consequently, agencies have routinely been granted the latitude to formulate regulations that bear the force of law, provided Congress supplies an "intelligible principle" to guide them.

Recently, however, a vocal revivalist movement within legal circles has sought to resurrect the strict nondelegation doctrine. Proponents of this revival argue that the modern administrative state is fundamentally undemocratic, as it insulates sweeping policy decisions from electoral accountability. By allowing unelected bureaucrats to enact binding rules, they contend, the current system violates the original intent of the framers, who meticulously designed the Constitution to vest legislative power exclusively in a representative legislature. For these revivalists, judicial intervention to strike down broad delegations is a necessary corrective to restore constitutional equilibrium.

Yet, a closer examination of early American legislative history undermines the revivalist claim of original intent. The first Congresses—populated by the very individuals who drafted the Constitution—frequently enacted statutes that delegated immense discretionary authority to the executive branch, particularly in areas like taxation, pensions, and trade. This historical record suggests that the framers embraced a more pragmatic, fluid understanding of separated powers than modern revivalists acknowledge. Furthermore, from a functional standpoint, the intricacies of contemporary governance—ranging from environmental protection to financial market regulation—demand a level of technical and scientific expertise that a generalist legislature simply cannot possess, nor efficiently exercise on a day-to-day basis.

Ultimately, while the revivalists correctly identify a genuine tension between administrative power and democratic accountability, their proposed remedy is both historically unsubstantiated and practically paralyzing. A return to strict nondelegation would not magically enhance legislative deliberation; it would more likely result in regulatory gridlock and the dismantling of essential public protections. Rather than attempting to turn back the clock to an idealized and historically inaccurate vision of rigid constitutional boundaries, the focus should be on refining the administrative state. Ensuring rigorous judicial review of agency actions and strengthening procedural transparency will far better serve the goal of accountability than an unworkable resurrection of the nondelegation doctrine.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the main point of the passage?

Analyze each of the following logical arguments regarding a proposed city library project. Match each argument with the sufficient assumption that logically guarantees its conclusion.

Ten years ago, the government of Valoria eliminated all tariffs on imported industrial machinery. In the decade since this policy change, Valoria's domestic manufacturing output has grown by 50 percent, and the average age of the industrial machinery used in Valorian factories has decreased by exactly five years. Economists have concluded that the tariff elimination caused the surge in manufacturing output by enabling factories to affordably replace outdated equipment with newer, more efficient imported machinery. Which one of the following is an assumption required by the economists' argument?

Agronomist: Since the widespread adoption of synthetic nitrate fertilizers in this region thirty years ago, the annual per-hectare yield of corn has increased by at least two percent every single harvest. The regional climate and soil types have not changed during this timeframe. Therefore, farmers in this region who continue using these synthetic nitrate fertilizers can reliably expect their corn yields to continue growing by at least two percent annually for the foreseeable future.

The reasoning in the agronomist's argument is flawed in that the argument

Consider the following argument: 'Every time a new bakery opens in our neighborhood, crime rates drop slightly. Therefore, the smell of fresh bread must be deterring criminals.'

The reasoning in this argument is flawed because it relies on the testimony of an unreliable authority.

Legal Theorist: Some scholars maintain that customary international law should not be considered binding on sovereign nations unless those nations have explicitly codified those customs into their domestic statutes. This view is fundamentally misguided, as it is a foundational necessity of global jurisprudence that unwritten international customs hold normative authority over state actions regardless of domestic codification. We can be certain of this because the intrinsic framework of global jurisprudence dictates that sovereign states are subject to customary legal norms even in the absence of explicit statutory adoption.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the legal theorist's reasoning?

Urban planner: A public transit initiative successfully reduces citywide traffic congestion only if its total end-to-end commute time is strictly less than the equivalent journey by private automobile. The proposed underground maglev system will feature longer passenger wait times at terminals than the city's current express bus network. Consequently, the proposed maglev system will fail to alleviate citywide traffic congestion.

Which one of the following, if assumed, enables the conclusion to be properly drawn?

Passage:
Historians have long debated the extent and nature of the so-called Carolingian Renaissance, a period of cultural and intellectual revival in Western Europe during the late eighth and ninth centuries. Traditionally, scholars such as François-Louis Ganshof championed the view that this era witnessed a top-down, systematic imposition of literacy and classical learning, driven primarily by Charlemagne’s court to unify a fragmented empire through standardized administrative and religious texts. According to this paradigm, the production of capitularies—royal legislative documents—and the proliferation of scriptoria were definitive proof of a widespread transition from a predominantly oral society to one anchored in written law and administration.

However, subsequent generations of historians, notably Rosamond McKitterick, have significantly complicated this traditional narrative. McKitterick does not dispute the explosion of written material during the Carolingian period; indeed, she emphasizes that the sheer volume of surviving manuscripts from the ninth century dwarfs that of the preceding Merovingian era. Yet, she fundamentally challenges Ganshof’s assumption that this textual proliferation was exclusively a top-down phenomenon orchestrated by the royal court for the purpose of imperial centralization. Instead, McKitterick's analysis of extant charters and local property disputes reveals that written documents were increasingly utilized by laypeople at the provincial level, suggesting a broader, more decentralized pragmatic literacy than previously acknowledged.

Further revising the landscape of Carolingian historiography, recent sociolinguistic approaches have focused on the complex interplay between written Latin and the spoken vernaculars. While traditionalists assumed that the standardization of Latin championed by Alcuin of York effectively isolated the illiterate masses from administrative processes, scholars like Michael Richter have argued that the written Latin of the capitularies was not intended to be read silently by a literate elite, but rather to be performed orally for a lay audience. In this view, the written document served as a script for oral dissemination rather than a replacement for it.

Despite these divergent interpretations of the social depth of Carolingian literacy, modern historians generally concede one crucial point originally advanced by the traditionalists: the Carolingian period firmly established the manuscript book—specifically the codex—as the central vehicle for the preservation of authoritative knowledge. Even revisionists who argue against widespread lay literacy acknowledge that the monumental effort to standardize the liturgy and correct the Vulgate Bible solidified the status of the written word, however it was subsequently disseminated, as the ultimate arbiter of religious and legal truth, a paradigm shift that fundamentally altered the intellectual trajectory of medieval Europe.

Based on the passage, which of the following statements most accurately reflects the explicit assertion made by scholars employing sociolinguistic approaches regarding Carolingian administrative documents?

Match each paradoxical situation with the statement that best resolves the apparent discrepancy.

Analyze the following four arguments, each of which draws a flawed conclusion about the present or future based on past conditions. Match each argument to the statement that best diagnoses its specific time-shift fallacy.

Historian: The discovery of massive, continuous-burn fire pits at the center of the ancient settlement of Kaelen suggests that the society was governed by a centralized religious authority, rather than a diffuse council of elders as previously thought. After all, only a centralized authority could have organized the immense labor force required to maintain such large fires day and night.

Which of the following statements represent assumptions that, when logically negated, severely undermine the historian's conclusion? Select all that apply.

Philosopher: Any society that guarantees absolute free speech runs the risk of political extremism. However, a society cannot foster robust intellectual debate unless it guarantees absolute free speech. Furthermore, historical evidence strongly suggests that a society cannot truly flourish without fostering robust intellectual debate. Therefore, it is clear that any society that actively attempts to eliminate the risk of political extremism will ultimately fail to truly flourish.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the philosopher's argument?

Match each causal argument with the specific category of assumption required for its conclusion to logically follow.

Agricultural Scientist: To combat devastating spongy moth infestations in commercial apple orchards, researchers developed a synthetic pheromone that completely masks the natural mating scent of female moths, preventing males from locating them. Although this pheromone degrades rapidly and requires costly weekly applications throughout the breeding season—unlike traditional broad-spectrum chemical pesticides which require only a single, inexpensive annual spray—orchard owners who transition exclusively to the synthetic pheromone will ultimately see higher profit margins.

Which of the following are assumptions on which the agricultural scientist's argument depends? (Select all that apply.)

In a particular forest ecosystem, the primary defense mechanism of the pale-winged Glider Moth against visually hunting predatory birds is its ability to blend in seamlessly with the light-colored bark of the region's dominant birch trees. Three years ago, a rapidly spreading fungal infection caused the bark of almost all these birch trees to turn completely black. Biologists predicted that this stark loss of camouflage would lead to a severe decline in the Glider Moth population due to increased predation. Yet, recent surveys show that the Glider Moth population is now more than double what it was before the fungal infection, even though the number of predatory birds in the forest has not decreased.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy in the information above?