11.   A government agency that reimburses its clients for bills they have paid for medical care has had this year’s budget cut. To save money without cutting reimbursements or otherwise harming clients financially, it plans to delay reimbursements to clients for forty days, thereby earning $180 million per year in interest on the reimbursement money.

Which of the following, if true, is the best criticism of the agency’s plan?

(A) Hospitals and physicians typically hold patients responsible for the ultimate payment of their bills.

(B) The agency cannot save money by cutting staff because it is already understaffed.

(C) Some clients borrow money to pay their medical bills; they will pay forty extra days of interest on these loans.

(D) Some clients pay their medical bills immediately, but they often take more than forty days to file with the agency for reimbursement.

(E) The agency’s budget was cut by more than $180 million last year.

Questions 12-13 are based on the following.

Record companies defend their substitution of laser-read compact discs (CD’s) for the much less expensive traditional long-playing vinyl records in their catalogs by claiming that the audio market is ruled by consumer demand for ever-improved sound reproduction rather than by record manufacturers’ profit-motivated marketing decisions. But this claim cannot be true, because if it were true, then digital audiotape, which produces even better sound than CD’s, would be commercially available from these same record companies, but it is not.

12.   Which of the following, if true, best explains how the record companies’ claim about the nature of the audio reproduction market could be true and digital audiotape nevertheless be unavailable for the commercial market?

(A) Most consumers prefer audiotape to long-playing records or CD’s because of the tape’s durability and compactness.

(B) Prototypes of digital audiotape have been used to make master tapes of some performances in recording studios.

(C) The manufacturing technology that underlies the commercial production of CD’s requires equipment very similar to that needed for commercial production of digital audiotape.

(D) Record companies have not yet solved several quality-control problems that have beset attempts to produce digital audiotape in commercial quantities.

(E) CD’s are more expensive than long-playing vinyl records by about the same ratio as digital audiotape cassettes would be more expensive than conventional cassettes.

13.   Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument against the record companies’ claim?

(A) When CD’s were first introduced in the audio-reproduction market, prices were high and selection was poor.

(B) Record companies are reluctant to attempt commercial production of digital audiotape until profits from the sales of CD’s have enabled them to recover their investments in compact-disc manufacturing technology.

(C) Some CD’s have been so much in demand that consumers have experienced long delays in obtaining copies.

(D) Because CD’s work according to principles very different from those that govern conventional recordings, commercial production of CD’s requires new kinds of manufacturing technology.

(E) Any valid comparison of CD audio reproductions to digital audiotape reproductions must be based on identical performances played back on the highest quality disc or tape player.

14.   The president of a consulting firm analyzed the decisions made about marketing by her clients and concluded that the decisions were correct only about half of the time.

The conclusion above depends on the presupposition that

(A) companies can be successful even when about half of the decisions they make about marketing prove to be wrong

(B) companies hiring her consulting firm make no more incorrect marketing decisions than do companies in general

(C) executives consistently making correct marketing decisions rarely enlist the aid of a consulting firm

(D) marketing decision are just as likely to be correct as they are to be incorrect

(E) it is possible to classify a marketing decision properly as being either right or wrong

15.   It is true that unionized women earn, on average, more than a third more than nonunionized women do. But the unionized women work in industries where wages happen to be high, their nonunionized counterparts in these industries earn about as much as they do. Therefore unionization does not raise women’s wages.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

(A) Besides wage increases, unions bargain for benefits such as medical insurance and workplace safety.

(B) The most highly paid women are in executive positions, which are not unionized.

(C) Wages in many industries vary from one part of the country to another, regardless of whether workers are unionized or not.

(D) Nonunionized women in an industry often receive income increases as a result of increases won by unions representing women who work for other employers in the same industry.

(E) The unionization of women who work for one employer in a given industry frequently prompts the unionization of women who work for other employers in the same industry.