Transnational cooperation among corporations is experiencing a modest renaissance among United States firms, even though projects undertaken by two or more corporations under a collaborative agreement are less profitable than projects undertaken by a single corporation. The advantage of transnational cooperation is that such joint international projects may allow United States firms to win foreign contracts that they would not other’ wise be able to win.

Which of the following statements by a United States corporate officer best fits the situation of United States firms as described in the passage above?

Biological functions of many plants and animals vary in cycles that are repeated every 24 hours. It is tempting to suppose that alteration in the intensity of incident light is the stimulus that controls these daily biological rhythms. But there is much evidence to contradict this hypothesis.

Which of the following, if known, is evidence that contradicts the hypothesis stated in lines 2-5 above?

Although migraine headaches are believed to be caused by food allergies, putting patients on diets that eliminate those foods to which the patients have been demonstrated to have allergic migraine reactions frequently docs not stop headaches. Obviously, some other cause of migraine headaches besides food allergies must exist.

Which of the following, if true, would most weaken the conclusion above?

Spending on research and development by United States businesses for 19E4 showed an increase of about 8 percent over the 1983 level. This increase actually continued a downward trend evident since 1981-when outlays for research and development increased 16.4 percent over 1980 spending. Clearly, the 25 percent tax credit enacted by Congress in 1981, which was intended to promote spending on research and development, did little or nothing to stimulate such spending.

The conclusion of the argument above cannot be true unless which of the following is true?

Property taxes are typically set at a flat rate per $11000 of officially assessed value. Reassessments should be frequent in order to remove distortions that arise when property values change at differential rates. In practice, however, reassessments typically occur when they benefit the government – that is, when their effect is to increase total tax revenue.

If the statements above are true, which of the following describes a situation in which a reassessment should occur but is unlikely to do so?

The number of patents granted to inventors by the United States Patent Office dropped from 56,000 in 1971 to 45,000 in 1978. Spending on research and development, which peaked at 3 percent of the gross national product (GNP) in 1964, was only 2.2 percent of the GNP in 1978. During this period, when the United States percentage was steadily decreasing, West Germany and Japan increased the percentage of their GNP’s spent on research and development to 3.2 per’ cent and 1.6 percent, respectively. Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information above?

Advocates of a large’scale space’defense research project conclude that it will represent a net benefit to civilian business. They say that since government’ sponsored research will have civilian applications, civilian businesses will reap the rewards of government- developed technology.

Each of the following, if true, raises a consideration arguing against the conclusion above, EXCEPT:

Many people argue that tobacco advertising plays a crucial role in causing teenagers to start or continue smoking. In Norway, however, where there has been a ban on tobacco advertising since 1975, smoking is at least as prevalent among teen’agers as it is in countries that do not ban such advertising.

Which of the following statements draws the most reliable conclusion from the information above?

According to the T[istate Transportation Authority, making certain improvements to the main commuter rail line would increase ridership dramatically. The authority plans to finance these improvements over the course of five years by raising automobile tolls on the two highway bridges along the route the rail line serves. Although the proposed improvements are indeed needed, the authority’s plan for securing the necessary funds should be rejected because it would unfairly force drivers to absorb the entire cost of something from which they receive no benefit.

Which of the following, if true, would provide the authority with the strongest counter to the objection that its plan is unfair?

Advertisement: Today’s customers expect high quality. Every advance in the quality of manufactured products raises customer expectations. The company that is satisfied with the current quality of its products will soon find that its customers are not. At MegaCorp, meeting or exceeding customer expectations is our goal.

Which of the following must be true on the basis of the statements in the advertisement above?