GMAT Exercise - 9

CR (Critical Reasoning)

Brochure: Help conserve our city’s water supply. By converting the landscaping in your yard to a water-conserving landscape, you can greatly reduce your outdoor water use. A water-conserving landscape is natural and attractive, and it also saves you money.

Criticism: For most people with yards, the savings from converting to a water-conserving landscape cannot justify the expense of new landscaping, since typically the conversion would save less than twenty dollars on a homeowner’s yearly water bills.

Which of the following, if true, provides the best basis for a rebuttal of the criticism?

A. Even homeowners whose yards do not have water-conserving landscapes can conserve water by installing water-saving devices in their homes.

B. A conventional landscape generally requires a much greater expenditure on fertilizer and herbicide than does a water-conserving landscape.

C. A significant proportion of the residents of the city live in buildings that do not have yards.。

D. It costs no more to put in water-conserving landscaping than it does to put in conventional landscaping.

E. Some homeowners use more water to maintain their yards than they use for all other purposes combined.

SC (Sentence Correction)

The breathing capacity of nonsmokers exposed to tobacco smoke on the job has been found to be significantly less than nonsmokers working in smoke-free environments, although unrestricted smoking at work is permitted by nearly 75 percent of all employers in the United States.

(a) The breathing capacity of nonsmokers exposed to tobacco smoke on the job has been found to be significantly less than nonsmokers working in smoke-free environments, although

(b) The breathing capacity of nonsmokers exposed to tobacco smoke on the job has been found significantly less than nonsmokers working in smoke-free environments, however

(c) Although the breathing capacity of nonsmokers exposed to tobacco smoke on the job has been found significantly less than that of nonsmokers working in smoke-free environments, however

(d) Although the breathing capacity of nonsmokers exposed to tobacco smoke on the job has been found to be significantly less than that of nonsmokers working in smoke-free environments

(e) Although the breathing capacity of nonsmokers exposed to tobacco smoke on the job has been found to be significantly less than nonsmokers working in smoke-free environments

MATH

(DS) Is |y-z+x|-|x-y+z|>=0?

1) y>z

2) x=0

(PS) What is the solpe of the line that pass through (-1,1) and (2, 4)?

A. 1 B. 2 C. 3 D. 4 E. 5

ANSWER)

RC

The critic of a water-conserving landscape argues that savings from new landscaping will not justify the cost of conversion. The question is asking for an answer choice that weakens such argument. Choice (A) supports the critic since savings from water-conserving landscape can be achieved through installment of water-saving device. If choice (B) is correct, savings from conversion is actually higher since homeowners can save on fertilizer and herbicide in addition to water which in turn supports water-conserving landscape. Choice (C) is out of scope since it refers to subjects that do not fit within the array of the argument. Choice (D) compares cost of initial landscaping, which is out of scope since the argument is about conversion. Choice (E) compares homeowners’ water usage on yards versus all other purposes, which is irrelevant to converting existing landscape to a water-conserving landscape. Therefore, choice (B) is a correct answer.

SC

Answer : D

The answer choices of A, B, and E are wrong because they are comparing ‘the breathing capacity’ with ‘nonsmokers’ through the subordinate conjunction ‘than’. For a logical meaning, two breathing capacities of the different nonsmokers should be compared. In C, the simultaneous use of ‘although’ and ‘however’ is creating redundancy.

So, the answer is D.

==> con 1) because y=3, y=2, x=0 yes, but y=3, z=2, x=-2 no, NOT sufficient con 2) |y-z|=|z-y| sufficient, therefore the best answer is B.

==> slope=(4-1)/(2-(-1))=3/3=1, therefore the best answer is A.