1. A study of energy consumption revealed that homeowners living within 100 miles of the Gulf of Mexico used less energy from November 1 to April 30 than did homeowners in any other region of the United States. The same study found that from May 1 to October 31, those same homeowners used more energy than any other homeowners.

Which of the following, if true, would most contribute to an explanation of the facts above?

(A) People who own homes near the Gulf of Mexico often own second homes in cooler locations, where they spend the summers.
(B) Air conditioning a home is a more energy-efficient process than heating a similarly sized home.
(C) Homes near the Gulf of Mexico require very little heating during the warm winters, but air conditioners must run longer in the summer to cool the warm, humid air.
(D) The average daily temperature is lower year-round near the Gulf of Mexico than in other areas of the United States.
(E) Because of the large number of refineries located in the Gulf region, the price of energy there is less than in any other area of the country.

2. A conservation group is trying to convince Americans that the return of gray wolves to the northern United States is a positive development. Introduction of the wolf faces significant opposition because of the wolf’s reputation as a killer of people and livestock. So that the wolf will be more acceptable to average Americans, the conservation group wants to dispel the myth that the wolf is a vicious killer.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the opposition’s claim?

(A) Wolves are necessary for a healthy population of white-tailed deer because wolves kill the weaker animals and limit the population to sustainable numbers.
(B) In a confrontation, black bears are much more dangerous to humans than wolves are.
(C) Wolves are superb hunters, operating in packs to track down their prey and kill it.
(D) There has never been a documented case of a wolf killing a human in the 500-year recorded history of North America.
(E) Wolves occasionally take livestock because domestic animals are not equipped to protect themselves the way wild animals are.

Questions 3–6 refer to the following passage.

This passage is excerpted from The Big Splat, or How Our Moon Came to Be, by Dana Mackenzie, PhD (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.):

     It is hard for us to imagine today how utterly different the world of night used to be from the daylight world. Of course, we can still re-create something of that lost mystique. When we sit around a campfire and tell ghost stories, our goose bumps (and our children’s) remind us of the terrors that night used to hold. But it is all too easy for us to pile in the car at the end of our camping trip and return to the comfort of our incandescent, fluorescent, floodlit modern word. Two thousand, or even two hundred, years ago there was no such escape from the darkness. It was a physical presence that gripped the world from sunset until the cock’s crow.
     “As different as night and day,” we say today. But in centuries past, night and day really were different. In a time when every scrap of light after sunset was desperately appreciated, when travelers would mark the road by piling up light stones or by stripping the bark off of trees to expose the lighter wood underneath, the Moon was the traveler’s greatest friend. It was known in folklore as “the parish lantern.” It was steady, portable, and — unlike a torch — entailed no risk of fire. It would never blow out, although it could, of course, hide behind a cloud.
     Nowadays we don’t need the moon to divide the light from the darkness because electric lights do it for us. Many of us have never even seen a truly dark sky. According to a recent survey on light pollution, 97 percent of the U.S. population lives under a night sky at least as bright as it was on a half-moon night in ancient times. Many city-dwellers live their entire lives under the equivalent of a full moon.

3. The primary purpose of this passage is to

(A) compare and contrast nighttime in the modern world with the dark nights of centuries past.
(B) explain why the invention of the electric light was essential to increasing worker productivity.
(C) lament the loss of the dark nights and the danger and excitement that moonless nights would bring.
(D) describe the diminishing brightness of the moon and the subsequent need for more electric lights.
(E) argue for an end to the excessive light pollution that plagues 97 percent of the U.S. population.

4. When the author says, “Many city-dwellers live their entire lives under the equivalent of a full moon,” he is essentially saying that

(A) city-dwellers will never be able to truly appreciate the mystique and beauty of a truly dark night.
(B) there is no longer a need for moonlight because artificial light is sufficient.
(C) city-dwellers are missing out on much of the beauty of the natural world.
(D) the amount of artificial light that shines in cities is enough to produce the same amount of light as a full moon.
(E) it is easier to view the moon from cities than from rural areas.

5. The passage mentions all the following as possible ways for travelers to find the path at night except

(A) piles of light-colored stones
(B) the moon
(C) a torch
(D) railings made of light wood
(E) trees with the bark stripped off

6. The author includes the statistic “97 percent of the U.S. population lives under a night sky at least as bright as it was on a half-moon night in ancient times” to primarily emphasize which of the following points?

(A) Modern humans have the luxury of being able to see well at night despite cloud cover or a moonless night.
(B) Most modern people cannot really understand how important the moon was to people in centuries past.
(C) Americans are unique among the people of the world in having so much artificial light at night.
(D) A full moon in ancient times was brighter than modern electric lights, which are only as bright as a half-moon.
(E) Light pollution is one of the most important problems facing the United States in the 21st century.

7. In 1995, the federal government gave states the right to set their own speed limits. Several states immediately increased their speed limits to 70 miles per hour, and some even abolished limits entirely. In most cases, this result has not been a problem; the overall rate of accidents per driver has not increased since the speed limits were raised. At the same time, however, highway accident fatalities have increased 6 percent.

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

(A) Teenage drivers are the most likely to exceed speed limits, and their driving skill is not yet equal to the task of avoiding high speed accidents.
(B) Accidents that occur at a higher speed are much more likely to be fatal than those at lower speeds.
(C) State governments are not as concerned with highway safety as the federal government as in the days of a federally mandated speed limit.
(D) In the 1970s, more people drove smaller, compact cars that got good gas mileage but were incapable of maintaining a high speed.
(E) Drivers today are often distracted by their cellphones, and built-in navigation and entertainment features of their vehicles, which makes them more likely to get into accidents.

Question 8 refers to the following exchange.

     Tom: The unemployment rate has dropped below 5 percent, and that is good news for America. A lower unemployment rate is better for almost everyone.
     Shelly: Actually, a low unemployment rate is good for most workers but not for everyone. Workers are certainly happy to have jobs, but many businesses are negatively affected by a low unemployment rate because they have fewer applicants for jobs, and to expand their workforce, they have to hire workers they would not usually hire. The wealthiest Americans also privately complain about the inability to get good gardeners, housecleaners, and nannies when most Americans are already employed. So a low unemployment rate is not, in fact, good for America.

8. Shelly’s conclusion that “a low unemployment rate is not, in fact, good for America” relies on the assumption that

(A) what is bad for businesses owners and the wealthy is bad for America.
(B) fluctuations in the unemployment rate affect the number of applicants for job openings.
(C) wealthy Americans rarely employ other Americans as housecleaners or nannies.
(D) business owners always want what is best for their workers even when it negatively impacts the bottom line.
(E) low unemployment hurts some workers because they would prefer to stay at home and collect unemployment checks.

9. A particular company makes a system that is installed in the engine block of a car and, if that car is stolen, relays the car’s location to police via satellite. The recovery rate of stolen cars with this device is 90 percent. This system helps everyone because it is impossible for a thief to tell which cars it is installed on. For these reasons, insurance companies try to encourage customers to get this system by offering lower rates to those who have the system. Competing systems include brightly colored steel bars that attach to the steering wheel and loud alarms that go off when the car is tampered with. These systems simply encourage thieves to steal different cars, and when cars with these devices are stolen, the police rarely recover them.

Which of the following is the most logical conclusion to the author’s premises?

(A) Insurance companies should give the same discount to car owners who have any protective system because their cars are less likely to be stolen.
(B) The police shouldn’t allow car owners to install the loud sirens on their cars because everyone simply ignores the sirens anyway.
(C) Car owners with the system that relays location to the police should prominently advertise the fact on the side window of their cars.
(D) Thieves should simply steal the cars with loud alarms or bright steel bars because those cars probably wouldn’t also have the more effective system installed.
(E) Insurance companies should give less of a discount, or no discount at all, to the siren and steering-wheel systems because they aren’t as effective as the relay system.

10. Companies X and Y have the same number of employees working the same number of hours per week. According to the records kept by the human resources department of each company, the employees of company X took nearly twice as many sick days as the employees of company Y. Therefore, the employees of company Y are healthier than the employees of company X.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the conclusion?

(A) Company X allows employees to use sick days to take care of sick family members.
(B) Company Y offers its employees dental insurance and company X doesn’t.
(C) Company X offers its employees a free membership to the local gym.
(D) Company Y uses a newer system for keeping records of sick days.
(E) Both companies offer two weeks of sick days per year.

Questions 11–15 refer to the following passage.

This passage is excerpted from Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture, by David Bollier (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.):

     For millennia, the circulation of music in human societies has been as free as the circulation of air and water; it just comes naturally. Indeed, one of the ways that a society constitutes itself as a society is by freely sharing its words, music, and art. Only in the past century or so has music been placed in a tight envelope of property rights and strictly monitored for unauthorized flows. In the past decade, the proliferation of personal computers, Internet access, and digital technologies has fueled two conflicting forces: the democratization of creativity and the demand for stronger copyright protections.
     While the public continues to have nominal fair use rights to copyrighted music, in practice the legal and technological controls over music have grown tighter. At the same time, creators at the fringes of mass culture, especially some hip-hop and remix artists, remain contemptuous of such controls and routinely appropriate whatever sounds they want to create interesting music.
     Copyright protection is a critically important tool for artists in earning a livelihood from their creativity. But as many singers, composers, and musicians have discovered, the benefits of copyright law in the contemporary marketplace tend to accrue to the recording industry, not to the struggling garage band. As alternative distribution and marketing outlets have arisen, the recording industry has sought to ban, delay, or control as many of them as possible. After all, technological innovations that provide faster, cheaper distribution of music are likely to disrupt the industry’s fixed investments and entrenched ways of doing business. New technologies allow newcomers to enter the market and compete, sometimes on superior terms. New technologies enable new types of audiences to emerge that may or may not be compatible with existing marketing strategies.
     No wonder the recording industry has scrambled to develop new technological locks and broader copyright protections; they strengthen its control of music distribution. If metering devices could turn barroom singalongs into a market, the music industry would likely declare this form of unauthorized musical performance to be copyright infringement.

11. Which of the following most accurately states the main idea of the passage?

(A) Only with the development of technology in the past century has music begun to freely circulate in society.
(B) The recording industry is trying to develop an ever-tighter hold on the distribution of music, which used to circulate freely.
(C) Copyright protection is an important tool for composers and musicians who earn their living from their music.
(D) Technology allows new distribution methods that threaten to undermine the marketing strategies of music companies.
(E) If music is no longer allowed to flow freely through the society, then the identity of the society itself will be lost.

12. Given the author’s overall opinion of increased copyright protections, what is his attitude toward “hip-hop and remix artists” mentioned in Paragraph 2?

(A) wonder that they aren’t sued more for their theft of copyright-protected music
(B) disappointment that they don’t understand the damage they are doing to society
(C) envy of their extravagant lifestyle and increasing popularity
(D) approval of their continued borrowing of music despite tighter copyright controls
(E) shock at their blatant sampling of the music of other artists

13. According to the passage, new technology has resulted (or will result) in each of the following except

(A) new locks on music distribution
(B) newcomers competing in the music market
(C) better music
(D) democratization of creativity
(E) faster, cheaper distribution of music

14. The author of the passage would likely agree most with which of the following statements?

(A) Small-time musicians do not benefit from strict copyright protections in the same manner as record companies do.
(B) Copyright protections are designed to let music artists keep more of the money they earn through their talent.
(C) Recording companies are largely undeserving of their greedy reputations.
(D) Recording companies embrace new technologies because they help encourage the spread of music.
(E) Copyright protections encourage creativity among musicians because the artists must find new ways to share their music with the masses.

15. The final sentence of the passage seems to imply what about the executives of the record industry?

(A) They have found ways to make money from any performance of any music at any time.
(B) They are boldly leading the music industry into a new technological era of vastly increased profits.
(C) They want their music to be performed as often as possible by the maximum number of people to create greater exposure for artists.
(D) They don’t actually like music or know anything about music and are attempting to limit the society’s exposure to music.
(E) No performance of music anywhere is safe from their attempts to control the distribution of all music.

16. New laws make it easier to patent just about anything, from parts of the human genome to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Commentators are concerned about the implications of allowing patents for things that can hardly be described as “inventions.” However, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office believes that allowing for strong copyright and patent protections fosters the kind of investment in research and development needed to spur innovation.

Which of the following can be properly inferred from the preceding statements?

(A) It was not possible in the past to patent something as common as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
(B) The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is more interested in business profits than in true innovation.
(C) Investment in research and development is always needed to spur innovation.
(D) The human genome is part of nature and shouldn’t be patented.
(E) Commentators who are concerned about too many patents aren’t very well informed.

17. The process of “gerrymandering,” or manipulating voter-district boundaries so that one party gains a considerable advantage in a district over another, is making the modern political climate more divisive than ever. It ensures that people with likeminded ideals end up densely packed in the same districts, and those people then elect officials who also share those likeminded ideals.

These elected officials are less prone to compromise, and this creates an unnecessary and harmful divide between parties.
Assuming all the following statements are true, which would most significantly weaken the argument made above?

(A) Gerrymandering sets up an unfair advantage by creating some districts that are nearly guaranteed to vote for a particular party, thereby freeing up more time and resources for that party to campaign elsewhere.
(B) People with likeminded ideals have an innate desire to live alongside others who share similar belief systems, regardless of their political affiliation.
(C) All elected officials are typically strong in their convictions.
(D) When people with likeminded ideals live in the same district, they tend to continuously elect politicians with very similar beliefs.
(E) Gerrymandering can be executed by both political parties.

18. In a recent survey, one out of six Americans were shown to have vision problems, which is a notable increase over the past two decades. The amount of time Americans spend in front of computer and television screens has risen sharply, and to reduce the number of Americans suffering from vision issues, the amount of screen exposure must also be reduced.

Which of the following, if true, would most substantially weaken the author’s conclusion?

(A) Increased screen time is directly correlated with vision problems.
(B) The connection between screen time and vision problems is not entirely clear.
(C) Screen time has increased globally and not just in America.
(D) Americans can reduce their risk of vision problems caused by too much screen time by dimming the screen and using a larger font.
(E) The majority of Americans with vision problems are older people, and the percentage of people over age 60 has steadily increased over the past 20 years.