GMAT

While there is no guarantee that increased investment in achieving energy independence will solve all of America’s unemployment problems, the results so far have demonstrated that it will definitely help the cause.   Under President Obama's watch, such increased investment has so far created 1.5 million jobs and has demonstrated the potential to create many more.

After a four-decade decline in oil production, the U.S. is now producing enough oil to serve more than half of our oil needs. This has the potential to free us from our addiction to foreign-sourced barrels, particularly if we utilize our dramatically larger and cheaper reserves of natural gas, which now costs the equivalent of less than $15 per barrel, versus the $100-plus per barrel of oil we import from the Middle East. The money saved by increased use of natural gas has helped in greater investments and has created more than 75,000 jobs domestically.

 

Moreover, the president’s policies have motivated companies to invest more in clean energy to the extent that American companies make over 75% of all venture investments in clean technologies. Overall, because of U.S. public and private investments in clean energy—including renewables, efficiency, transportation, and infrastructure—the clean economy grew by 8.3% from 2008 to 2009, even during the depths of the recession. Even though several technologies, such as solar power, are still not as cost-competitive as imported oil, expanding these clean-energy investments is good economics as they will help preserve and expand America's middle class, because energy investments are a particularly effective method of "insourcing" manufacturing jobs, which in turn spur jobs in invention, installation, and maintenance.

Q. The author of the passage is primarily concerned with

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 author’s main purpose in writing the passage is

Fast food chains constantly face the problem of low employee retention, to counter which the companies offer high salaries. The companies have come up with the solution of hiring retired people who have a very low attrition rate. However, their time taken to service an order is more and they require going through long training programs at regular intervals. Thus, for most fast food chains the gain in employee retention does not compensate for the increase in time taken to serve each customer. Nevertheless, since the customers continue to be more appreciative when served by retired people, their employment is likely to become an industry-wide feature.

In the argument above, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

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?

A recent study conducted by Armald company found that the main reason for the low conversion ratio (number of customers made to number of potential customers approached) is that the sales employees of Armald do not appear as serious and formal to the prospective customers as do employees of other companies. The company’s vice-president has suggested that the possible reason could be that the current uniform of sales people is perceived to be of lower quality by the people. The vice-president has therefore proposed replacing the existing uniform of salespeople with better and more expensive uniform.

Which of the following would it be most important to ascertain in determining whether implementing the vice-president’s proposal would increase the sales of the company?

The residents of the city of Tibica are supplied water by two local corporations: TMC (Tibica Municipal Corporation) and TWMC (TibicaWater Management Corporation). Under pressure from the government, TMC recently increased its supply of water to the city. Even though TWMC maintained its supply level, the residents complained that their overall supply of water has reduced. Therefore, it seems likely that

Which of the following statements best completes the above passage?