Logical Reasoning Sample Questions 7 – 10

Question 7

Several critics have claimed that any contemporary poet who writes formal poetry—poetry that is rhymed and metered—is performing a politically conservative act. This is plainly false. Consider Molly Peacock and Marilyn Hacker, two contemporary poets whose poetry is almost exclusively formal and yet who are themselves politically progressive feminists. The conclusion drawn above follows logically if which one of the following is assumed? 

A. No one who is a feminist is also politically conservative. 

B. No poet who writes unrhymed or unmetered poetry is politically conservative. 

C. No one who is politically progressive is capable of performing a politically conservative act. 

D. Anyone who sometimes writes poetry that is not politically conservative never writes poetry that is politically conservative. 

E. The content of a poet’s work, not the work’s form, is the most decisive factor in determining what political consequences, if any, the work will have. 

Question 8 

About two million years ago, lava dammed up a river in western Asia and caused a small lake to form. The lake existed for about half a million years. Bones of an early human ancestor were recently found in the ancient lake-bottom sediments that lie on top of the layer of lava. Therefore, ancestors of modern humans lived in western Asia between two million and one-and-a-half million years ago. 

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

A. There were no other lakes in the immediate area before the lava dammed up the river. 

B. The lake contained fish that the human ancestors could have used for food. 

C. The lava that lay under the lake-bottom sediments did not contain any human fossil remains. 

D. The lake was deep enough that a person could drown in it. 

E. The bones were already in the sediments by the time the lake dried up. 

Question 9 

In jurisdictions where use of headlights is optional when visibility is good, drivers who use headlights at all times are less likely to be involved in a collision than are drivers who use headlights only when visibility is poor. Yet Highway Safety Department records show that making use of headlights mandatory at all times does nothing to reduce the overall number of collisions. 

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

A. In jurisdictions where use of headlights is optional when visibility is good, one driver in four uses headlights for daytime driving in good weather. 

B. A law making use of headlights mandatory at all times is not especially difficult to enforce. 

C. Only very careful drivers use headlights when their use is not legally required. 

D. There are some jurisdictions in which it is illegal to use headlights when visibility is good. 

E. The jurisdictions where use of headlights is mandatory at all times are those where daytime visibility is frequently poor. 

Question 10 

The Venetian Renaissance painter Vittore Carpaccio used sumptuous reds in most of his paintings. Since the recently discovered Venetian Renaissance painting Erato Declaiming contains notable sumptuous reds, it is probably by Carpaccio. 

Which one of the following contains a pattern of flawed reasoning most similar to that in the argument above? 

A. Most Renaissance painters worked in a single medium, either tempera or oil. Since the Renaissance painting Calypso's Bower is in oil, its painter probably always used oil. 

B. In Italian Renaissance painting, the single most common subject was the Virgin and Child, so the single most common subject in Western art probably is also the Virgin and Child. 

C. Works of art in the Renaissance were mostly commissioned by patrons, so the Renaissance work The Dances of Terpsichore was probably commissioned by a patron. 

D. The anonymous painting St. Sebastian is probably an early Florentine painting since it is in tempera, and most early Florentine paintings were in tempera. 

E. Since late-Renaissance paintings were mostly in oil, the Venetian late-Renaissance painter Arnoldi, whose works are now lost, probably painted in oil.