A marriage counselor noted that couples who have occasional violent arguments are less likely to divorce within the next six months than those who have frequent but less violent arguments. He concluded that frequent arguing is a major factor in the causation of severe marital disharmony.
The counselor`s conclusion is most weakened by which of the following observations?

United States hospitals have traditionally relied primarily on revenues from paying patients to offset losses from unreimbursed care. Almost all paying patients now rely on governmental or private health insurance to pay hospital bills. Recently, insurers have been strictly limiting what they pay hospitals for the care of insured patients to amounts at or below actual costs.
Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the information above?

Josh has twenty years of typing experience behind him; therefore, if you are looking for an efficient typist to enter your data into the new system, you need look no further.
The speaker assumes that

It is strange that in Sentacity there are so many corner shops selling food items. After all there are many supermarkets in the city which sell food at cheaper prices, and many of these supermarkets are open 24-hours.
Which of the following, if true, would be of least help in explaining the paradoxical observation?

In the past most airline companies minimized aircraft weight to minimize fuel costs. The safest airline seats were heavy, and airlines equipped their planes with few of these seats. This year the seat that has sold best to airlines has been the safest one—a clear indication that airlines are assigning a higher priority to safe seating than to minimizing fuel costs.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument above?

Thousands of people have tonsillectomies every year and all live normal lives after the operation. We can conclude, from this observation, that the tonsils have no function in the body.
The argument would be most weakened by which of the following, if it were true?

Between 1975 and 1985, nursing-home occupancy rates averaged 87 percent of capacity, while admission rates remained constant, at an average of 95 admissions per 1,000 beds per year. Between 1985 and 1988, however, occupancy rates rose to an average of 92 percent of capacity, while admission rates declined to 81 per 1,000 beds per year.
If the statements above are true, which of the following conclusions can be most properly drawn?

An airplane engine manufacturer developed a new engine model with safety features lacking in the earlier model, which was still being manufactured. During the first year that both were sold, the earlier model far outsold the new model; the manufacturer thus concluded that safety was not the customers’ primary consideration.
Which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken the manufacturer’s conclusion?

A computer equipped with signature-recognition software, which restricts access to a computer to those people whose signatures are on file, identifies a person’s signature by analyzing not only the form of the signature but also such characteristics as pen pressure and signing speed. Even the most adept forgers cannot duplicate all of the characteristics the program analyzes.
Which of the following can be logically concluded from the passage above?

Firms adopting “profit-related-pay” (PRP) contracts pay wages at levels that vary with the firm’s profits. In the metalworking industry last year, firms with PRP contracts in place showed productivity per worker on average 13 percent higher than that of their competitors who used more traditional contracts.
If, on the basis of the evidence above, it is argued that PRP contracts increase worker productivity, which of the following, if true, would most seriously weaken that argument?