19. A tree's age can be determined by counting the annual growth rings in its trunk. Each ring represents one year, and the ring's thickness reveals the relative amount of rainfall that year. Archaeologists successfully used annual rings to determine the relative ages of ancient tombs at Pazyryk. Each tomb was constructed from freshly cut logs, and the tombs builders were constrained by tradition to use only logs from trees growing in the sacred Pazyryk Valley.

Which one of the following, if true, contributes most to an explanation of the archaeologists' success in using annual rings to establish the relative ages of the tombs at the Pazyryk site？

（A） The Pazyryk tombs were all robbed during ancient times, but breakage of the tombs seals allowed the seepage of water, which soon froze permanently, thereby preserving the tombs' remaining artifacts.

（B） The Pazyryk Valley, surrounded by extremely high mountains, has a distinctive yearly pattern of rainfall, and so trees growing in the Pazyryk Valley have annual rings that are quite distinct from trees growing in nearby valleys.

（C） Each log in the Pazyryk tombs has among its rings a distinctive sequence of twelve annual rings representing six drought years followed by three rainy years and three more drought years.

（D） The archaeologists determined that the youngest tree used in any of the tombs was 90 years old and that the oldest tree was 450 years old.

（E） All of the Pazyryk tombs contained cultural artifacts that can be dated to roughly 2300 years ago.

20. Experienced gardeners advise against planting snap peas after late April because peas do not develop properly in warm weather. This year, however, the weather was unusually cool into late June, and therefore the fact that these snap peas were planted in mid-May is unlikely to result in crop failure despite the experts' warnings.

The pattern of reasoning displayed above is most closely paralleled in which one of the following？

（A） According to many gardening authorities, tomatoes should not be planted near dill because doing so is likely to affect their taste were grown near dill and taste fine, there is clearly no reason to pay much attention to the so-called experts' advice.

（B） Since African violets do not thrive in direct sunlight, it is said that in this region these plants should be placed in windows facing north rather than south； however, since these south-facing windows are well shaded by evergreen trees, the African violets placed in them are likely to grow satisfactorily.

（C） Where flowers are to be planted under shade trees, gardening experts often advise using impatiens since impatiens does well in conditions of shade； however, it is unlikely to do well under maple trees since maple tree roots are so near the surface that they absorb all available moisture.

（D） Most seeds tend to germinate at much higher rates when planted in warm soil than when are unlikely to germinate properly if the soil is too warm, and therefore experts advise that spinach should be planted earlier than most vegetables.

（E） House plants generally grow best in pots slightly larger than their existing root systems, so the usual advice is to report when roots first reach the sides of the pot； this rule should no be followed with amaryllis plants. However, because they are likely to do best with tightly compressed roots.

21. Whenever a major political scandal erupts before an election and voters blame the scandal on all parties about equally, virtually all incumbents, from whatever party, seeking reelection are returned to office. However, when voters blame such a scandal on only one party, incumbents from that party are likely to be defeated by challengers from other parties. The proportion of incumbents who seek reelection is high and remarkably constant from election to election.

If the voters' reactions are guided by a principle, which one of the following principles would best account for the contrast in reactions described above？

（A） Whenever one incumbent is responsible for one major political scandal and another incumbent is responsible for another, the consequences for the two incumbents should be the same.

（B） When a major political scandal is blamed on incumbents from all parties, that judgment is more accurate than any judgment that incumbents from only on party are to blame.

（C） Incumbents who are rightly blamed for a major political scandal should not seek reelection, but if they do, they should not be returned to office.

（D） Major political scandals can practically always be blamed on incumbents, but whether those incumbents should be voted out of office depends on who their challengers are.

（E） When major political scandals are less the responsibility of individual incumbents than of the parties to which they belong, whatever party was responsible must be penalized when possible.

22. Once people habitually engaged in conversation： now the television competes for their attention. When the television is on, communication between family members stops. Where there is no communication, family ties become frayed and eventually snap. Therefore, the only solution is to get rid of the television.

Which one of the following is most closely parallel in its reasoning to the flawed reasoning in the argument above？

（A） Once friendships thrived on shared leisure time. But contemporary economic pressures minimize the amount of free time people have and thus jeopardize many friendships.

（B） Once people listened to the radio while pursuing other activities. Now they passively watch television. Therefore, radio was less distracting for most people than television is.

（C） Once sports enthusiasts regularly engaged in sports, but now they watch spectator sports when they could be getting physical exercise. Without physical exercise, health deteriorates. Therefore, the only remedy is to eliminate spectator sports.

（D） Once people were willing to tailor their day to the constraints of a bus or train schedule： now they are spoiled by the private car. The only solution is for government to offer financial incentives to encourage the use of public transportation.

（E） Once people did their shopping in urban retail districts, where they combined their shopping with other errands. Now many people shop in suburban malls, where they concentrate on shopping exclusively. Therefore, shopping has become a leisure time activity.

23. In essence, all rent-control policies involve specifying a maximum rent that a landlord may charge for a dwelling. The rationale for controlling rents is to protect tenants in situations where limited supply will cause rents to rise sharply in the face of increased demand. However, although rent control may help some tenants in the short run, it affects the rental-housing market adversely in the long run because landlords become reluctant to maintain the quality of their existing properties and even more reluctant to have additional rental-housing units built.

Which one of the following, if true, best explains the landlords' reluctance described above？

（A） Tenants prefer low-quality accommodations with rent control to high-quality accommodations without it.

（B） Rent control makes it very difficult for landlords makes it very difficult for landlords to achieve reasonable returns on any investments in maintenance or in new construction.

（C） Rent control is a common practice even though it does nothing to alleviate shortages in rental housing.

（D） Rent control is generally introduced for political reasons and it takes political action to have it lifted again.

（E） Tenants prefer rent control to the alternative of receiving direct government subsidies toward rents they cannot afford.

24. Certain minor peculiarities of language are used unconsciously by poets. If such peculiarities appear in the works of more than one poet, they are likely to reflect the language in common use during the poets' time. However, if they appear in the work of only one poet, they are likely to be personal idiosyncrasies. As such, they can provide a kind of "fingerprint" that allows scholars, by comparing a poem of previously unknown authorship to the work of a particular known poet, to identify the poem as the work of that poet.

For which on of the following reasons can the test described above never provide conclusive proof of the authorship of any poem？

（A） The labor of analyzing peculiarities of language both in the work of a known poet and in a poem of unknown authorship would not be undertaken unless other evidence already suggested that the poem of unknown authorship was written by the known poet.

（B） A peculiarity of language that might be used as an identifying mark is likely to be widely scattered in the work of a poet, so that a single poem not known to have been written by that poet might not include that peculiarity.

（C） A peculiarity of language in a poem of unknown authorship could be evidence either that the poem was written by the one author known to use that peculiarity or that the peculiarity was not unique to that author.

（D） Minor peculiarities of language contribute far less to the literary effect of any poem than such factors as poetic form, subject matter, and deliberately chosen wording.

（E） A poet's use of some peculiarities of language might have been unconscious in some poems and conscious in other poems, and the two uses would be indistinguishable to scholars at a later date.

25. Because of the recent transformation of the market. Quore, Inc., must increase productivity, 10 percent over the course of the next two years, or it will certainly go bankrupt. In fact, however, Quore's production structure is such that if a 10 percent productivity increase is possible, then a 20 percent increase is attainable.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must on the basis of them also be true？

（A） It is only Quore's production structure that makes it possible fro Quore to survive the transformation of the market.

（B） Quore will not go bankrupt if it achieves a productivity increase of 20 percent over the next two years.

（C） If the market had not been transformed, Quore would have required no productivity increase in order to avoid bankruptcy.

（D） Because of the transformation of the market Quore will achieve a productivity increase of 10 percent over the next two years.

（E） If a 20 percent productivity increase is unattainable for Quore, then it must go bankrupt.