GMAT

Analyst 1: Many parents take their children along when they go for shopping for toys because they want to know whether the children will really enjoy playing with a toy before buying it for them. But in many cases, children ask for toys that are either out of their parents’ budgets or are somewhat unsafe for the children. Either way, it is not a good idea to take children along when shopping for toys.

Analyst 2: But since parents have the ultimate authority to decide whether to purchase a particular toy, your consideration is not valid.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to strengthen the conclusion drawn by analyst 1?

Eating fish and other foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids could help people maintain healthy brains as they age as well as protect their hearts, new research suggests. Per this research, participants with low levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood had slightly smaller brains and scored lower on memory and cognitive tests than people with higher blood levels of omega-3s.

The researchers then looked at and ranked the level of omega-3 fatty acids in the participants' blood. People who scored in the bottom 25% in omega-3 fatty acid levels were compared with the rest of the study participants. Researchers found that those who had the lowest level of omega-3 fatty acid levels in their blood had lower brain gray matter volume compared with those with higher levels.

Gray matter volume is crucial to brain health. When it remains higher, brain health is being maintained. Decrease in gray matter volume indicates that brain cells are shrinking. The findings showed that consumption of baked or broiled fish on a weekly basis was positively associated with retention of gray matter volume in several areas of the brain. In fact the greater hippocampal, posterior cingulate, and orbital frontal cortex volumes obtained by optimal fish consumption led to reduced risk of contracting MCI or Alzheimer’s by almost five-fold.

The most recent U.S. dietary guidelines—released last year—recommend at least two servings of seafood a week. Some doctors and diet experts recommend that patients consume fish three times a week or take fish-oil supplements so they get enough omega-3 fatty acids to obtain health benefits.

The experiment discussed in paragraph 2 suggests

Proverbial wisdom states that “birds of a feather flock together.”  Studies have shown that people of similar geographical and educational backgrounds and functional experience are extremely likely to found companies together.  Not considering spousal teams in the dataset, it has been found that a founding team is five times more likely to be all-male or all-female team.  Also, it is more likely to find founding teams that are remarkably homogenous with regard to skills and functional backgrounds.  

Homogeneity has important benefits. For the founder struggling to meet the challenges of a growing startup, selecting cofounders from among the people with whom he or she probably has important things in common is often the quickest and easiest solution. Not only does it generally take less time to find such people, but it also generally takes less time to develop effective working relationships with such similar people.  When founders share a background, they share a common language that facilitates communication, ensuring that the team begins the work relationship with a mutual understanding and hence can skip over part of the learning curve that would absorb the energies of people with very different backgrounds.  Increasing homogeneity may therefore be a particularly alluring- and, in some ways, a particularly sensible - approach for novice founders heading into unfamiliar territory.  Certainly, studies have found that the greater the heterogeneity among executive team members, the greater the risk of interpersonal conflict and the lower the group-level integration.  Even though it is very appealing to opt for the “comfortable” and “easy” decision to found with similar cofounders, by doing so founders may be causing long-term problems.  Teams with a wide range of pertinent functional skills may be able to build more valuable and enduring startups.  Conversely, homogenous teams tend to have overlapping human capital, making it more likely that the team will have redundant strengths and be missing critical skills.

From the passage, which of the following cannot be inferred as a benefit of homogenous teams?

The role of nurturing in determining one’s behavioral traits has been hotly contested. Historically, geneticists believed that behavioral traits are inherited. After all, many properties of the brain are genetically organized and don't depend on information coming in from the senses. Since active genes are essentially inherited, most traditional geneticists believe that nurturing environment plays little role in shaping one’s behavioral traits.

However, a new line of research indicated that methyl groups can activate dormant genes, bringing about a slew of changes much later in a person’s life. The methyl group works like a placeholder in a cookbook, attaching to the DNA within each cell to select only those recipes - er, genes - necessary for that particular cell’s proteins, telling the DNA what kind of cells to form.  The first such observation was in which methyl groups activated by causes ranging from exposure to certain chemicals to changes in diet set off a cascade of cellular changes resulting in cancer. Because methyl groups are attached to the genes, residing beside but separate from the double-helix DNA code, their study is dubbed epigenetics - “epi” referring to Greek for outer or above. 

Behavioral geneticists, encouraged by this discovery proved that traumatic experiences such as child neglect, drug abuse, or other severe stresses also set off epigenetic changes to the DNA inside the neurons of a person’s brain, permanently altering behavior.  Similarly, through multivariate analysis, they proved that identical twins, in scenarios where one twin has gone through a life altering event, can have vastly different reaction to a stressful situation.

The primary purpose of the passage is to

Every day, Tom walks from his home to his office, via the same route, covering s feet at a speed of x feet per minute. Today he took a different route and ended up walking 10% more than he usually does, at a speed that was 100 meters per minute faster than his usual speed. What is the percentage change in the time he took today compared to the time he takes on a usual day? (1 feet =0.3 meter)  

John Maynard Keynes, the British economist whose ideas shaped the theory and practice of modern macroeconomics, influenced public opinion on critically important areas like monetary policy of the central bank and relative merits of public vs. private investment, thereby advocating a mixed economy.

A recent examination of the waters of the Southern Ocean showed a substantial increase in pollution levels, which is usually caused by routine oil spills during industrial drilling operations in the area. Last month, an article published in the biannual newsletter of a prominent environmental organization attributed this increase to the operations of Gaston Inc., an oil company with several large deep-water drilling operations. This claim is not undermined by the finding that none of Gaston Inc.’s oil plants in the Southern Ocean had any oil spills, because ____________.

Editor: Posthumous publication of works is often problematic since the writer is not present to attest to some facts. The problem arises when writers forget to date the drafts of their manuscripts. Consequently, it becomes difficult for the editors handling their work to ensure that the latest version of the script is published. Therefore, to eliminate the problem, writers should not only date their scripts but also specify which previous version the new script replaces.

The editor’s argument is most vulnerable to the criticism that it

Extreme reliance on metrics that have brought success in the past is likely to make a company miss opportunities that are created by disruptions in technology and consumer behavior.

In an attempt to improve the economic and social welfare of the people, the government has recently announced a scheme under which it will provide certain staple foods at 30% discount to the authorized dealers. The reduction in the prices of these foods will significantly improve the economic conditions of the people from low income groups.

Which of the following would be most useful to establish in evaluating the argument?