primarily through dieting, their metabolisms generally remain unchanged. They will thus burn significantly fewer calories at the new weight than do people whose weight is normally at that level. Such newly thin persons will, therefore, ultimately regain weight until their body size again matches their metabolic rate.The conclusion of the argument above depends on which of the following assumptions?
(A) Relatively few very overweight people who have dieted down to a new weight tend to continue to consume substantially fewer calories than do people whose normal weight is at that level.
(B) The metabolisms of people who are usually not overweight are much more able to vary than the metabolisms of people who have been very overweight.
(C) The amount of calories that a person usually burns in a day is determined more by the amount that is consumed that day than by the current weight of the individual.
(D) Researchers have not yet determined whether the metabolic rates of formerly very overweight individuals can be accelerated by means of chemical agents.
(E) Because of the constancy of their metabolic rates, people
who are at their usual weight normally have as much difficulty gaining weight as they do losing it.
7. Fast cycle time is a strategy of designing a manufacturing organization to eliminate bottlenecks and delays in production. Not only does it speed up production, but it also assures quality. The reason is that the bottlenecks and delays cannot be eliminated unless all work is done right the first time. The claim about quality made above rests on a questionable presupposition that
(A)any flaw in work on a product would cause a bottleneck or delay and so would be prevented from occurring on a fast cycle production line
(B) the strategy of fast cycle time would require fundamental rethinking of product design
(C) the primary goal of the organization is to produce a product of unexcelled quality, rather than to generate profits for stockholders
(D) fast cycle time could be achieved by shaving time off each of the component processes in production cycle
(E) fast cycle time is a concept in business strategy that has not yet been put into practice in a factory
8.Blood banks will shortly start to screen all donors for NANB hepatitis.Although the new screening tests are estimated to disqualify up to 5 percent of all prospective blood donors, they will still miss two-thirds of donors carrying NANB hepatitis. Therefore, about 10 percent of actual donors will still supply NANB-contaminated blood.
The argument above depends on which of the following assumptions?
(A)Donors carrying NANB hepatitis do not,in a large percentage of cases, carry other infections for which reliable screening tests are routinely performed.
(B) Donors carrying NANB hepatitis do not,in a large percentage of cases, develop the disease themselves at any point.
(C) The estimate of the number of donors who would be disqualified by tests for NANB hepatitis is an underestimate. (D) The incidence of NANB hepatitis is lower among the potential blood donors than it is in the population at large. (E) The donors who will still supply NANB-contaminated blood will donate blood at the average frequency for all donors. 9.A researcher discovered that people who have low levels of immune-system activity tend to score much lower on tests of
mental health than do people with normal or high
immune-system activity. The researcher concluded from this experiment that the immune system protects against mental illness as well as against physical disease.
The researcher's conclusion depends on which of the following assumptions?
(A) High immune-system activity protects against mental illness better than normal immune-system activity does. (B) Mental illness is similar to physical disease in its effects on body system.
(C) People with high immune-system act ivity cannot develop mental illness.
(D) Mental illness does not cause people's immune-system activity to decrease.
(E) Psychological treatment of mental illness is not as effective as is medical treatment.
10.The program to control the entry of illegal drugs into the country was a failure in 1987. If the program had been successful, the wholesale price of most illegal drugs would not have dropped substantially in 1987.
The argument in the passage depends on which of the following assumptions?
(A) The supply of illegal drugs dropped substantially in 1987. (B) The price paid for most illegal drugs by the average consumer did not drop substantially in 1987.
(C) Domestic production of illegal drugs increased at a higher rate than did the entry of such drugs into the country. (D) The wholesale price of a few illegal drugs increased substantially in 1987.
(E) A drop in demand for most illegal drugs in 1987 was not the sole cause of the drop in their wholesale price. 11.Installing scrubbers in smokestacks and switching to cleaner-burning fuel are the two methods available to Northern Power for reducing harmful emissions from its plants. Scrubbers will reduce harmful emissions more than cleaner-burning fuels will. Therefore,by installing scrubbers, Northern Power will be doing the most that can be done to reduce harmful emissions from its plants.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?
(A) Switching to cleaner-burning fuel will not be more expensive than installing scrubbers.
(B) Northern Power can choose from among various kinds of