The kinds of hand and wrist injuries that result from extended use of a computer while maintaining an incorrect posture are common among schoolchildren in Harnville. Computers are important to the school curriculum there, so instead of reducing the amount their students use computers, teachers plan to bring about a sharp reduction in the number of these injuries by carefully monitoring their students’ posture when using computers in the classroom.

Which of the following would it be most useful to know in order to assess the likelihood that the teachers’ plan will be successful?

Many people suffer an allergic reaction to certain sulfites, including those that are commonly added to wine as preservatives. However, since there are several winemakers who add sulfites to none of the wines they produce, people who would like to drink wine but are allergic to sulfites can drink wines produced by these winemakers without risking an allergic reaction to sulfites.

Which of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

Since it has become known that several of a bank’s top executives have been buying shares in their own bank, the bank’s depositors, who had been worried by rumors that the bank faced impending financial collapse, have been greatly relieved. They reason that, since top executives evidently have faith in the bank’s financial soundness, those worrisome rumors must be false. Such reasoning might well be overoptimistic, however, since corporate executives have been known to buy shares in their own company in a calculated attempt to dispel negative rumors about the company’s health.

ln the argument given, the two boldfaced portions play which of the following roles?

Studies in restaurants show that the tips left by customers who pay their bill in cash tend to be larger when the bill is presented on a tray that bears a credit-card logo. Consumer psychologists hypothesize that simply seeing a credit-card logo makes many credit-card holders willing to spend more because it reminds them that their spending power exceeds the cash they have immediately available.

Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the psychologists’ interpretation of the studies?

Country X’s recent stock-trading scandal should not diminish investors’ confidence in the country’s stock market. For one thing, the discovery of the scandal confirms that Country X has a strong regulatory system, as the following considerations show. ln any stock market, some fraudulent activity is inevitable. lf a stock market is well regulated, any significant stock-trading fraud in it will very likely be discovered. This deters potential perpetrators and facilitates improvement in regulatory processes.

ln the argument, the portion in boldface plays which of the following roles?

Theater Critic: The play La Finestrina, now at Central Theater, was written in ltaly in the eighteenth century. The director claims that this production is as similar to the original production as is possible in a modern theater. Although the actor who plays Harlequin the clown gives a performance very reminiscent of the twentieth-century American comedian Groucho Marx, Marx’s comic style was very much within the comic acting tradition that had begun in sixteenthcentury ltaly.

The considerations given best serve as part of an argument that

Last year all refuse collected by Shelbyville city services was incinerated. This incineration generated a large quantity of residual ash. ln order to reduce the amount of residual ash Shelbyville generates this year to half of last year’s total, the city has revamped its collection program. This year city services will separate for recycling enough refuse to reduce the number of truckloads of refuse to be incinerated to half of last year’s number.

Which of the following is required for the revamped collection program to achieve its aim?