RC: Main Idea & Primary Purpose Practice Questions - GMAT Focus

Question 1

A municipal transit authority plans to reduce bus ticket prices by 20% to increase total fare revenue, arguing that lower prices will attract substantial new ridership.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the transit authority's argument?

Accepted Answer

B) The city's buses are currently operating at over 95% passenger capacity during all peak morning and evening commuting hours.

Answer

A) Surrounding suburbs recently instituted a congestion charge on private automobiles entering the city center.

Answer

C) Surveys indicate that commuters prioritize route frequency over ticket price when selecting transportation.

Answer

D) The cost of diesel fuel for the bus fleet is expected to remain stable over the next three years.

Question 2

Editorial: 'To reduce urban traffic congestion, the city council plans to eliminate fares on all municipal subway lines. However, this policy will fail to reduce vehicular gridlock because a survey revealed that 85% of car commuters stated that high subway ticket prices were not the reason they drove to work.'

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the editorial's conclusion?

Accepted Answer

E) The survey was conducted during a holiday weekend when normal traffic patterns were disrupted.

Answer

A) Subway maintenance costs are projected to increase by 15% following ridership surges.

Answer

B) Free subway travel will induce large numbers of bus passengers and pedestrians to switch to the subway, leaving road traffic unchanged.

Answer

C) Car commuters who drive during peak rush hour cite parking scarcity near their offices as their primary inconvenience, and free subways will attract thousands of non-commuters who previously occupied those parking lots.

Answer

D) Many suburban commuters drive to outlying subway stations and would switch entirely to driving if subway overcrowding worsened.

Question 3

According to the passage, why does rational arbitrage fail to immediately eliminate asset mispricings caused by noise traders?

Accepted Answer

B) Institutional margin risks, capital funding constraints, and agency frictions structurally limit arbitrageurs' capacity to counteract mispricings.

Answer

A) Arbitrageurs are legally barred from taking short positions in public equity markets.

Answer

C) Arbitrageurs lack access to quantitative algorithmic tools capable of detecting mispricing anomalies.

Answer

D) The Efficient Market Hypothesis prohibits arbitrageurs from holding contrarian investment portfolios.

Answer

E) Retail noise traders possess infinitely larger capital reserves than institutional arbitrage funds.

Question 4

The author mentions 'post-earnings announcement drift' in the second paragraph primarily to:

Accepted Answer

A) Illustrate an empirical market anomaly that directly challenges the premise of immediate informational price adjustment.

Answer

B) Recommend a specific investment strategy for mutual funds seeking excess market returns.

Answer

C) Explain how corporate executives intentionally withhold earnings reports to confuse retail investors.

Answer

D) Demonstrate that macroeconomic earnings announcements have no measurable impact on stock valuations.

Answer

E) Argue that financial markets become completely unpredictable following quarterly corporate earnings releases.

Question 5

Which of the following best expresses the primary purpose of the passage?

Accepted Answer

B) To contrast the obsolete belief in adult neural rigidity with modern evidence and mechanisms of adult cortical reorganization.

Answer

A) To argue that childhood critical periods are of negligible importance in human cognitive development.

Answer

C) To prove that adult musical training is the most effective therapeutic intervention for stroke victims.

Answer

D) To propose replacing fMRI imaging with two-photon calcium microscopy in clinical neurology.

Answer

E) To demonstrate that acetylcholine supplements can reverse severe cognitive decline in the elderly.

Question 6

According to the passage, how does adult neuroplastic reorganization fundamentally differ from infant cortical development?

Accepted Answer

A) Adult neuroplasticity requires neuromodulatory gating and focused attention, whereas infant development features unconstrained synaptogenesis.

Answer

B) Adult cortical changes occur across entire hemispheres simultaneously, while infant changes are confined to the planum temporale.

Answer

C) Infant synaptic growth is constrained by perineuronal nets, while adult synaptic rewiring is completely unrestricted.

Answer

D) Adult reorganization relies solely on dendritic spine pruning without any new synaptic remodeling.

Answer

E) Infants require acetylcholine and dopamine to stabilize circuits, whereas adults do not require chemical neuromodulation.

Question 7

It can be inferred from the passage that critics of the doctrine of equivalents are primarily concerned with its:

Accepted Answer

B) Dampening effect on competitor innovation caused by legal ambiguity surrounding patent boundaries.

Answer

A) Tendency to reduce the legal protection afforded to original inventors.

Answer

C) Strict requirement that inventions be identical in every mechanical detail to trigger infringement.

Answer

D) Inability to prevent foreign counterfeit manufacturing in overseas jurisdictions.

Answer

E) Excessive rigidity in strictly enforcing literal claim phrasing against pioneering inventors.

Question 8

According to the passage, the primary judicial function of 'prosecution history estoppel' is to:

Accepted Answer

B) Bar patent holders from using the doctrine of equivalents to reclaim scope they specifically surrendered during patent office examination.

Answer

A) Prevent patent applicants from amending their claims during initial review by patent examiners.

Answer

C) Automatically invalidate any patent whose claims were rejected more than once by the patent office.

Answer

D) Force defendants to prove that an accused product performs a completely novel mechanical function.

Answer

E) Eliminate all judicial discretion in determining reasonable financial damages in patent infringement suits.

Question 9

Which of the following best describes the central thesis of the passage?

Accepted Answer

C) The institutional rigidity that secured Venice's domestic political longevity simultaneously stifled the economic dynamism needed to compete with Atlantic trading powers.

Answer

A) The Serrata of 1297 was a disastrous political failure that led directly to continuous violent civil rebellions in early modern Venice.

Answer

B) Venice's long-term commercial decline was caused primarily by navigational technological deficits rather than domestic economic institutions.

Answer

D) The Dutch Republic and England successfully conquered Venetian maritime trade routes through direct naval warfare in the Adriatic Sea.

Answer

E) Venetian merchant-patricians were prevented by papal decree from investing capital in agricultural land on the Italian mainland.

Question 10

The author mentions 'safe, low-yielding agrarian landholdings in the Italian terraferma' primarily to illustrate:

Accepted Answer

A) A strategic shift by Venetian patricians toward capital preservation at the expense of high-risk commercial maritime trade.

Answer

B) The primary source of Venice's military wealth during wars against the Ottoman Empire.

Answer

C) The success of early modern land-reform policies enacted by the Great Council to empower commoners.

Answer

D) The Dutch Republic's failure to acquire productive agricultural territory in mainland Europe.

Answer

E) An environmental crisis that forced Mediterranean merchants to abandon seafaring entirely.

Question 11

Corporate Consultant: 'Over the past three years, Software Enterprise X experienced a 35% decline in proprietary patent filings following the transition to fully remote work. A survey of engineering managers revealed that informal whiteboard collaboration dropped by 70% during this period. Therefore, to restore its historical patent generation rate, Enterprise X must mandate that all software engineers return to in-person office work at least four days per week.'

Which of the following is an assumption upon which the consultant's argument relies?

Accepted Answer

B) The decline in patent filings was not primarily caused by external factors such as a redirection of corporate R&D budgets toward incremental product updates rather than novel patentable architectures.

Answer

A) Software engineers at Enterprise X prefer working in physical offices over working remotely.

Answer

C) Enterprise X's competitors who maintain strict in-office mandates file more patents per engineer than Enterprise X does.

Answer

D) Informal whiteboard sessions cannot be successfully replicated using cloud-based digital collaboration tools.

Answer

E) Engineers who file patents receive larger annual compensation bonuses than engineers who work strictly on system maintenance.

Question 12

City Transportation Commissioner: 'To reduce pedestrian traffic casualties, our department installed automated radar speed cameras along twelve major urban boulevards last year. Official traffic records show that automated speeding citations issued on these corridors plummeted by 42% over the subsequent twelve months. This precipitous drop proves that the automated camera network has succeeded in curbing reckless driving across our city.'

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the Commissioner's conclusion?

Accepted Answer

B) Popular smartphone GPS navigation applications recently integrated real-time radar camera alerts, prompting drivers to decelerate sharply immediately before the camera sensors while accelerating aggressively on intervening arterial residential streets.

Answer

A) The revenue generated by the speed camera citations was insufficient to cover the cameras' ongoing cloud telemetry maintenance costs.

Answer

C) Pedestrian foot traffic along the twelve boulevards decreased by 5% due to an unusually harsh winter.

Answer

D) Several neighboring municipalities rejected proposals to install similar speed camera networks due to civil privacy objections.

Answer

E) A small fraction of motorists challenged their automated speeding citations in municipal traffic court, with half of those citations being dismissed.

Question 13

Epidemiological Researcher: 'In a large longitudinal study of 15,000 adult participants, researchers observed that individuals who regularly consumed fermented dairy products exhibited a 28% lower incidence of severe coronary artery calcification than those who consumed non-fermented dairy. We hypothesize that specific bacterial strains active in fermentation synthesize Menaquinone-7 (Vitamin K2), which activates osteocalcin and matrix Gla-protein to directly inhibit calcium deposition in arterial walls.'

Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest support for the researcher's biochemical hypothesis?

Accepted Answer

B) In a controlled laboratory intervention, participants administered pasteurized fermented dairy whose living bacterial cultures had been heat-deactivated failed to display any reduction in arterial calcification markers compared to baseline non-dairy diets.

Answer

A) Participants who consumed fermented dairy also reported exercising an average of 30 minutes more per week than non-consumers.

Answer

C) Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of adult mortality in modern industrialized nations.

Answer

D) Individuals with severe lactose intolerance frequently substitute fermented dairy products for fluid milk without digestive distress.

Answer

E) Synthetic chemical supplements containing high concentrations of calcium carbonate do not accelerate arterial plaque formation in healthy adults.

Question 14

Chief Executive Officer: 'Our supply chain logistics network faces unprecedented competitive disruption. Either our company commits $80 million immediately to build fully autonomous fulfillment centers, or our retail distribution speed will become uncompetitive, driving our e-commerce market share to zero within 24 months. Because preserving our enterprise viability is paramount, the board of directors must approve the $80 million capital expenditure at tomorrow's meeting.'

The CEO's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it:

Accepted Answer

B) Presupposes a false dilemma by arbitrarily restricting the strategic choices to two extreme outcomes while ignoring viable intermediary alternatives such as hybrid automation or third-party logistics partnerships.

Answer

A) Relies on emotional appeals to employee job security rather than quantitative financial projections.

Answer

C) Fails to establish that automated fulfillment centers are more expensive to construct than traditional manual warehouses.

Answer

D) Confuses a temporal sequence of business events with an inevitable causal progression.

Answer

E) Attacks the personal motives of board members rather than addressing the substance of their fiscal objections.

Question 15

Cosmologist: **Astrophysicists long operated under the assumption that the dark matter halos enclosing spiral galaxies were geometrically spherical in structure.** However, ultra-high-resolution gravitational lensing measurements of fifty nearby galaxies have recently revealed pronounced prolate and triaxial distortions in their outer galactic halos. **It follows that existing cosmological N-body simulations must be comprehensively overhauled to account for non-isotropic halo geometries.**

In the cosmologist's argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

Accepted Answer

B) The first describes an established scientific belief whose validity is being challenged; the second is the main conclusion established by the argument.

Answer

A) The first is an empirical observation that supports the argument; the second is a prediction that the argument rejects.

Answer

C) The first is an intermediate conclusion drawn from experimental data; the second provides empirical context for that conclusion.

Answer

D) The first is a premise that contradicts the cosmologist's hypothesis; the second is a subsidiary claim that reconciles the contradiction.

Answer

E) The first is a general principle accepted by the cosmologist; the second is an exception to that principle.

Question 16

Under commercial banking law in Maritime Jurisdiction Z, any corporate loan agreement with an aggregate principal exceeding $5,000,000 is legally enforceable in civil court only if executed with a notarized institutional seal, unless all institutional lenders participating in the syndicate hold a Tier-1 National Prudential Banking Charter, in which case authenticated electronic signatures are legally sufficient.

A syndicated commercial credit agreement for $12,000,000 was executed between Borrower Corp and three institutional lenders using exclusively authenticated electronic signatures, with no notarized seal. A commercial court in Jurisdiction Z ruled that the credit agreement is fully valid and legally enforceable.

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

Accepted Answer

B) All three institutional lenders in the syndicate hold Tier-1 National Prudential Banking Charters.

Answer

A) Borrower Corp holds a Tier-1 National Prudential Banking Charter.

Answer

C) The loan agreement principal was disbursed in cash rather than electronic wire transfer.

Answer

D) Jurisdiction Z has abolished all notarized institutional seal requirements for commercial lending.

Answer

E) At least one of the three institutional lenders is headquartered outside Jurisdiction Z.

Question 17

Over a five-year period in Republic X, the average price of domestic commercial airline tickets decreased by 22% in real terms, yet the aggregate domestic passenger revenue collected by commercial airlines rose by 34%. During this identical time window, the total number of individual passengers who traveled on domestic flights remained virtually unchanged.

Which of the following, if true, most effectively resolves the apparent paradox described above?

Accepted Answer

B) Commercial airlines unbundled ticket pricing by instituting mandatory fees for checked baggage, seat selection, and priority boarding, generating ancillary revenues that far exceeded the ticket fare reductions.

Answer

A) The average distance flown per domestic trip decreased by 10% over the five-year period.

Answer

C) Aviation jet fuel costs declined dramatically due to international petroleum surpluses.

Answer

D) Airlines replaced older wide-body aircraft with modern fuel-efficient twin-engine turboprops.

Answer

E) The national government of Republic X eliminated subsidies previously provided to regional rural airports.

Question 18

The primary purpose of the passage is to:

Accepted Answer

B) Contrast a classical theoretical model of debt neutrality with an empirical framework that explains how central bank asset purchases influence borrowing costs through structural market frictions.

Answer

A) Demonstrate why pension funds must abandon asset-liability duration matching to achieve financial solvency.

Answer

C) Argue that fiscal deficit spending has no measurable impact on private corporate savings rates.

Answer

D) Recommend that central banks discontinue Quantitative Tightening to prevent illiquidity in secondary bond markets.

Answer

E) Prove that forward-looking economic agents invariably fail to anticipate future tax obligations under Ricardian equivalence.

Question 19

According to the passage, which of the following best describes the role of defined-benefit pension funds in segmented sovereign debt markets?

Accepted Answer

B) Because of regulatory solvency mandates and duration matching imperatives, they generate inelastic demand for long-duration sovereign debt.

Answer

A) They act as aggressive arbitrageurs that eliminate maturity-specific term premiums across the yield curve.

Answer

C) They prefer short-term Treasury bills over long-term bonds due to higher liquidity during monetary tightening cycles.

Answer

D) They lobby central banks to accelerate Quantitative Tightening to boost yields on cash reserves.

Answer

E) They invest exclusively in non-sovereign equities to avoid the risk of central bank policy shifts.

Question 20

It can be inferred from the passage that if arbitrageurs possessed unlimited risk-bearing capacity and faced no balance-sheet leverage or VaR limits, Quantitative Easing would:

Accepted Answer

B) Have a significantly reduced impact on private borrowing costs and corporate credit spreads.

Answer

A) Trigger catastrophic deflation throughout the domestic manufacturing sector.

Answer

C) Force the central government to default on its short-term Treasury obligations.

Answer

D) Prevent defined-benefit pension funds from meeting their contractual retirement payouts.

Answer

E) Cause the sovereign yield curve to invert permanently across all maturities.

Question 21

Economist: 'Countries that instituted high tariffs on imported electric vehicles experienced a 30% increase in domestic electric vehicle manufacturing investments over the subsequent three years. Therefore, implementing aggressive protective tariffs is an effective mechanism for revitalizing domestic manufacturing across high-technology industrial sectors.'

The economist's argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it:

Accepted Answer

B) Generalizes from the outcome observed in a single subsidized sector to high-technology industries as a whole.

Answer

A) Fails to establish that domestic consumers purchased electric vehicles manufactured during the period in question.

Answer

C) Overlooks the possibility that tariff revenues were directed toward subsidizing other commercial enterprises.

Answer

D) Assumes that the manufacturing investment was funded through private venture capital rather than public bond issuances.

Answer

E) Ignores the retaliatory tariffs that foreign trading partners might enact in agricultural markets.

Question 22

Medical Director: 'Over the past two years, our regional clinic mandated that all attending physicians utilize an artificial intelligence diagnostic co-pilot during clinical assessments. Because misdiagnosis rates for rare pulmonary disorders fell by 40% during this period, the integration of AI diagnostic tools was clearly the primary cause of this improved diagnostic accuracy.'

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the Medical Director's conclusion?

Accepted Answer

C) At the start of the two-year period, the clinic introduced ultra-high-resolution thoracic CT scanners that detect microscopic lesions undetectable by previous diagnostic machinery.

Answer

A) Physicians reported spending an average of four minutes longer per patient while inputting clinical notes into the AI diagnostic interface.

Answer

B) Several other regional clinics that did not adopt AI diagnostic tools also experienced slight declines of approximately 5% in diagnostic error rates.

Answer

D) The AI diagnostic software required three subsequent patch updates to resolve intermittent software latency issues.

Answer

E) Physicians who had practiced medicine for more than fifteen years expressed initial skepticism regarding the AI software's diagnostic recommendations.

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