Q1 · hard · AI-verified
Passage: 'A study found that students who eat breakfast perform better academically than those who skip it. A school introduced a mandatory breakfast programme. The principal announced that academic performance will improve as a result.'
Which of the following is the most critical assumption underlying the principal's announcement?
- The improvement in academic performance observed in the study was caused by eating breakfast, and not by other factors correlated with breakfast-eating students.
- Academic performance in the school is currently below national average.
- The mandatory breakfast programme will provide nutritionally adequate meals to every student.
- All students in the school currently skip breakfast before the programme is introduced.
Q2 · hard · AI-verified
Passage: 'Every democratic society must guarantee freedom of speech. However, freedom of speech cannot be absolute because unrestricted speech can cause social harm. Therefore, a truly democratic society must impose some restrictions on speech. But any restriction on speech makes a society less than fully democratic. Hence, no society can be both truly democratic and fully functional.'
Which of the following, if true, most effectively challenges the conclusion of this argument?
- Freedom of speech is ranked as the most important democratic value in surveys conducted across thirty nations.
- A distinction exists between minimal, harm-preventing restrictions on speech and the suppression of political dissent; only the latter undermines democracy.
- Several authoritarian regimes have in the past claimed to be democratic while imposing severe restrictions on speech.
- Functional democracies tend to have higher economic growth rates than non-democratic states.
Q3 · hard · AI-verified
Read the following argument carefully:
'All countries that have achieved high economic growth in the last decade have invested heavily in digital infrastructure. Country X has invested heavily in digital infrastructure. Therefore, Country X has achieved high economic growth in the last decade.'
Which one of the following best identifies the logical flaw in this argument?
- The argument commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent — heavy digital investment is a sufficient condition only for being in the group of high-growth countries, but not a necessary and sufficient condition for growth itself.
- The argument commits a hasty generalisation by inferring a universal rule from too few examples of high-growth countries.
- The argument uses circular reasoning because it assumes Country X is a high-growth country before proving it.
- The argument presents a false dilemma by implying that digital infrastructure is the only path to economic growth.
Q4 · hard · AI-verified
Read the following argument carefully:
'All cities that have efficient public transport systems have low carbon emissions. Metropolis has low carbon emissions. Therefore, Metropolis has an efficient public transport system.'
Which of the following best identifies the logical flaw in the above argument?
- The argument commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent — low carbon emissions could result from factors other than efficient public transport.
- The argument is a valid deductive inference since the conclusion follows necessarily from the two premises given.
- The argument commits the fallacy of denying the antecedent — it incorrectly negates the premise about efficient public transport systems.
- The argument commits a hasty generalisation by using the case of Metropolis to draw conclusions about all cities.
Q5 · hard · AI-verified
Read the following statements:
Statement 1: In a survey of 1,000 urban professionals, 70% reported that they exercise regularly.
Statement 2: The national average for regular exercise among the adult population is 25%.
Conclusion drawn by a researcher: Urban professionals are healthier than the general population because they exercise more.
Which one of the following is the strongest criticism of the researcher's conclusion?
- The conclusion conflates correlation with causation and ignores other determinants of health, while also failing to account for the non-representative nature of the survey sample.
- The national average of 25% is too low to serve as a meaningful benchmark for evaluating the health of urban professionals.
- The researcher should have used a sample size of at least 5,000 to make any statistically valid comparison between two populations.
- The conclusion is invalid because the survey was conducted only in urban areas, whereas the national average includes both rural and urban populations.