Prep2012-Pack1-CR-071 VCR014016 Hard
Electric utilities pay less for low-quality coal per ton delivered than for high-quality coal. Yet more low-quality coal than high—quality coal must be burned to generate the same amount of electricity. Moreover, per ton of coal burned, low-quality coal generates more ash than does high-quality coal, and the disposal of ash is becoming more and more expensive.
The considerations above, if true, most strongly support which of the following claims?
A. A coal-burning utility might not be assured of benefiting economically by always adhering to the policy of keeping its overall coal purchasing costs as low as possible.
B. In those regions where the cost of disposing of coal ash is negligible, it is more expensive for coal-burning utilities to use high-quality coal than low-quality coal.
C. Transportation costs represent a smaller proportion of the cost per delivered ton for low-quality coal than for high-quality coal.
D. It is no less expensive to dispose of a ton of coal ash that results from the burning of high-quality coal than it is to dispose of a ton of coal ash that results from the burning of low-quality coal.
E. In regions where coal-ash disposal is the least expensive, reserves of low-quality coal are likely to decline at a faster rate than are reserves of high-quality coal.
Prep2012-Pack1-CR-072 VCR006014 Hard
Which of the following most logically completes the argument?
Yorco and Zortech are two corporations that employ large numbers of full-time workers who are paid by the hour.
Publicly available records indicate that Yorco employs roughly the same number of such hourly wage workers as
Zortech does but spends a far higher total sum per year on wages for such workers. Therefore, hourly wages must be higher, on average, at Yorco than at Zortech, since_____________.
A. Zortech spends a higher total sum per year than Yorco does to provide its hourly wage workers with benefits other than wages
B. the work performed by hourly wage workers at Zortech does not require a significantly higher level of skill than the work performed by hourly wage workers at Yorco does
C. the proportion of all company employees who are hourly wage workers is significantly greater at Yorco than it is at Zortech
D. overtime work, which is paid at a substantially higher rate than work done during the regular work week, is rare at both Yorco and Zortech
E. the highest hourly wages paid at Yorco are higher than the highest hourly wages paid at Zortech
Prep2012-Pack1-CR-073 VCR006119 Hard
The Earth's rivers constantly carry dissolved salts into its oceans. Clearly, therefore, by taking the resulting increase in salt levels in the oceans over the past hundred years and then determining how many centuries of such increases it would have taken the oceans to reach current salt levels from a hypothetical initial salt-free state, the maximum age of the Earth's oceans can be accurately estimated.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
A. The quantities of dissolved salts deposited by rivers in the Earth's oceans have not been unusually large during the past hundred years.
B. At any given time, all the Earth's rivers have about the same salt levels.
C. There are salts that leach into the Earth's oceans directly from the ocean floor.
D. There is no method superior to that based on salt levels for estimating the maximum age of the Earth's oceans
E. None of the salts carried into the Earth's oceans by rivers are used up by biological activity in the oceans.
