GMAT Verbal Intensive Batch

CR Session 1
Purpose of this batch:
• What you do in the remaining 159 hours in the week will decide your success, not the 9 hours of classes

• To ensure the maximum output, it is mandatory to complete 100% prework before attending (in absolute depth)
• Go for the best option available – you might not get the ideal answer as per you in the options given.
• We are here to pick the best of 5, not the best there can be.
• Sometimes, the correct answer might seem counterintuitive to you – Embrace the new approach
• Don’t get stuck on incorrect answer choices
• You will get 3 mins per question for solving. If confident in CR, aim to attempt in 100 seconds.
• Aim for 90%+ accuracy – Max 1 to 2 questions incorrect
• Please don’t stall / remain stuck. Let’s plan to cover as many questions as possible. Your support is needed here.
• If any doubts still remain, follow the below steps:
o Give yourself some time – If you give the question some mental space and time, it will surely become clear
o Watch the video solution again
o If still unclear, reach out to us at doubts email (gmatdoubts@top-one-percent.com) for further clarification

• The meaning of the word DEPTH is threefold for me: 1. If given enough time, you won’t go wrong in at least 90% (9/10) questions | 2. You are
sure of your answer even before you check the answerkeys | 3. You believe you can teach that particular portion / question / concept to others
1. In grasslands near the Namib Desert there are “fairy circles”—large, circular patches that are entirely
devoid of vegetation. Since sand termite colonies were found in every fairy circle they investigated,
scientists hypothesize that it is the burrowing activities of these termites that cause the circles to form.
Which one of the following, if true, most supports the scientists’ hypothesis?
A. Dying grass plants within newly forming fairy circles are damaged only at the roots.
B. The grasses that grow around fairy circles are able to survive even the harshest and most prolonged
droughts in the region.
C. The soil in fairy circles typically has higher water content than the soil in areas immediately outside
the circles.
D. Fairy circles tend to form in areas that already have numerous other fairy circles.
E. Species of animals that feed on sand termites are often found living near fairy circles.
2. The energy an animal must expend to move uphill is proportional to its body weight, whereas the
animal’s energy output available to perform this task is proportional to its surface area. This is the
reason that small animals, like squirrels, can run up a tree trunk almost as fast as they can move on
level ground, whereas large animals tend to slow down when they are moving uphill.
Which of the following, if true, strengthens the reasoning in the argument above?
A. The amount of energy needed to move uphill is no greater for large animals than it is for small animals.
B. Small animals can move more rapidly than large animals can.
C. The ratio of surface area to body weight is smaller in large animals than it is in small animals.
D. There is little variation in the ratio of energy output to body weight among animals.
E. The amount of energy needed to run at a given speed is proportional to the surface area of the running
animal.
3. When the rate of inflation exceeds the rate of return on the most profitable investment available, the
difference between those two rates will be the percentage by which the value of any investment will
decline. If in such a circumstance the value of a particular investment declines by more than that
percentage, it must be true that _______.
Which one of the following logically completes the argument?
A. the rate of inflation has decreased
B. the investment in question has become less profitable over time
C. the investment in question is less profitable than the most profitable investment available
D. the rate of return on the most profitable investment available has declined
E. there has been a change in which particular investment happens to be the most profitable available
4. All the apartments on 20th Avenue are in old houses. However, there are twice as many apartments on
20th Avenue as there are old houses. Therefore, most old houses on 20th Avenue contain more than
one apartment.
The reasoning in the argument above is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the
argument
A. overlooks the possibility that some of the buildings on 20th Avenue are not old houses
B. draws a conclusion that simply restates one of the premises offered in support of the conclusion
C. fails to consider the possibility that some buildings on 20th Avenue may offer types of rental
accommodation other than apartments
D. confuses a condition whose presence would be sufficient to ensure the truth of the argument’s
conclusion with a condition whose presence is required in order for the conclusion to be true
E. fails to address the possibility that a significant number of old houses on 20th Avenue contain three or
more apartments
5. Linguist: Only if a sentence can be diagrammed is it grammatical. Any grammatical sentence is
recognized as grammatical by speakers of its language. Speaker X’s sentence can be diagrammed. So,
speaker X’s sentence will be recognized as grammatical by speakers of its language.
The linguist’s reasoning is flawed because it fails to consider the possibility that
A. most people are unable to diagram sentences correctly
B. some ungrammatical sentences are diagrammable
C. all sentences recognized as grammatical can be diagrammed
D. all grammatical sentences can be diagrammed
E. some ungrammatical sentences are recognized as ungrammatical
6. A group of scientists studying calcium metabolism in laboratory rats discovered that removing the
rats’ parathyroid glands resulted in the rats’ having substantially lower than normal levels of calcium
in their blood. This discovery led the scientists to hypothesize that the function of the parathyroid
gland is to regulate the level of calcium in the blood by raising that level when it falls below the normal
range. In a further experiment, the scientists removed not only the parathyroid gland but also the
adrenal gland from rats. They made the surprising discovery that the level of calcium in the rats’ blood
decreased much less sharply than when the parathyroid gland alone was removed.
Which one of the following, if true, explains the surprising discovery in a way most consistent
with the scientists’ hypothesis?
A. The adrenal gland acts to lower the level of calcium in the blood.
B. The adrenal gland and the parathyroid gland play the same role in regulating calcium blood levels.
C. The absence of a parathyroid gland causes the adrenal gland to increase the level of calcium in the
blood.
D. If the adrenal gland, and no other gland, of a rat were removed, the rat’s calcium level would remain
stable.
E. The only function of the parathyroid gland is to regulate the level of calcium in the blood.
7. The government of Penglai, an isolated island, proposed eliminating outdoor advertising. Some island
merchants protested that the law would reduce the overall volume of business in Penglai, pointing to a
report done by the government indicating that in every industry the Penglai businesses that used
outdoor advertising had a larger market share than those that did not.
Which one of the following describes an error of reasoning in the merchants’ argument?
A. presupposing that there are no good reasons for restricting the use of outdoor advertising in Penglai
B. assuming without giving justification that the outdoor advertising increased market share by some
means other than by diverting trade from competing businesses
C. ignoring the question of whether the government’s survey of the island could be objective
D. failing to establish whether the market-share advantage enjoyed by businesses employing outdoor
advertising was precisely proportionate to the amount of advertising
E. disregarding the possibility that the government’s proposed restrictions are unconstitutional
8. Many scholars believe that official medieval persecutions of various minority groups were undertaken
very reluctantly by medieval authorities and only in order to soothe popular unrest caused by
underlying popular hostility to the groups in question. This belief is highly questionable. For one thing,
there are few indications of any profound underlying popular hostility toward persecuted groups in
cases where persecutions were particularly violent and sustained. For another, the most serious and
widespread persecutions carried out by medieval authorities seem to have had as targets exactly those
groups that most effectively disputed these authorities’ right to govern.
Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument that the scholars’ belief is
questionable?
A. Official persecutions in medieval times were usually preceded by officially sanctioned campaigns
vilifying the groups to be persecuted.
B. Medieval minority communities often existed under the direct protection of official institutions.
C. Some groups, such as those accused of witchcraft, were the victims of spontaneous mob violence as
well as of occasional official persecution.
D. Many medieval leaders refused to authorize the dissemination of information misrepresenting the
religious practices of officially protected minorities.
E. Convicted felons were often legally excluded from participation in medieval society, but this practice
was seen as a form of punishment and not of persecution.
9. At night, a flock of crows will generally perch close together in a small place—often a piece of wooded
land—called a roost. Each morning, the crows leave the roost and fan out in small groups to hunt and
scavenge the surrounding area. For most flocks, the crow’s hunting extends as far as 100 to 130
kilometers from the roost. Normally, a flock will continue to occupy the same roost for several
consecutive years, and when it abandons a roost site for a new one the new roost is usually less than
eight kilometers away.
Of the following claims, which one can most justifiably be rejected on the basis of the statement
above?
A. Crows will abandon their roost site only in response to increase in the population of the flock.
B. When there is a shortage of food in the area in which a flock of crows normally hunts and scavenges,
some members of the flock will begin to hunt and scavenge outside that area.
C. Most of the hunting and scavenging that crows do occurs more than eight kilometers from their roost.
D. Once a flock of crows has settled on a new roost site, it is extremely difficult to force it to abandon that
site for another.
E. When a flock of crows moves to a new roost site, it always does so because the area in which it has
hunted and scavenged has been depleted of food sources.
10. Many vaccines create immunity to viral diseases by introducing a certain portion of the disease-
causing virus’s outer coating into the body. Exposure to that part of a virus is as effective as exposure
to the whole virus in stimulating production of antibodies that will subsequently recognize and kill the
whole virus. To create a successful vaccine of this type, doctors must first isolate in the disease-causing
virus a portion that stimulates antibody production. Now that a suitable portion of the virus that
causes hepatitis E has been isolated, doctors claim they can produce a vaccine that will produce
permanent immunity to that disease.
Which one of the following, if true, most strongly counters the doctors’ claim?
A. Most of the people who contract hepatitis E are young adults who were probably exposed to the virus
in childhood also.
B. Some laboratory animals exposed to one strain of the hepatitis virus developed immunity to all strains
of the virus.
C. Researchers developed a successful vaccine for another strain of hepatitis, hepatitis B, after first
isolating the virus that causes it.
D. The virus that causes hepatitis E is very common in some areas, so the number of people exposed to
that virus is likely to be quite high in those areas.
E. Many children who are exposed to viruses that cause childhood diseases such as chicken pox never
develop those diseases.
11. Several thousand years ago, people in what is now North America began to grow corn, which grows
faster and produces more food per unit of land than do the grains these people had grown previously.
Corn is less nutritious than those other grains, however, and soon after these people established corn
as their staple grain crop, they began having nutrition-related health problems. Yet the people
continued to grow corn as their staple grain, although they could have returned to growing the more
nutritious grains.
Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain why the people mentioned continued
to grow corn as their staple grain crop?
A. The variety of corn that the people relied on as their staple grain produced more food than did the
ancestors of that variety.
B. Modern varieties of corn are more nutritious than were the varieties grown by people in North
America several thousand years ago.
C. The people did not domesticate large animals for meat or milk, either of which could supply nutrients
not provided by corn.
D. Some grain crops that could have been planted instead of corn required less fertile soil in order to
flourish than corn required.
E. The people discovered some years after adopting corn as their staple grain that a diet that
supplemented corn with certain readily available nongrain foods significantly improved their health.
12. Geographers and historians have traditionally held the view that Antarctica was first sighted around
1820, but some sixteenth-century European maps show a body that resembles the polar landmass,
even though explorers of the period never saw it. Some scholars, therefore, argue that the continent
must have been discovered and mapped by the ancients, whose maps are known to have served as
models for the European cartographers.
Which of the following, if true, is most damaging to the conclusion drawn by the scholars?
A. The question of who first sighted Antarctica in modern times is still much debated, and no one has
been able to present conclusive evidence.
B. Between 3,000 and 9,000 years ago, the world was warmer than it is now, and the polar landmass was
presumably smaller.
C. There are only a few sixteenth-century global maps that show a continental landmass at the South
Pole.
D. Most attributions of surprising accomplishments to ancient civilizations or even extraterrestrials are
eventually discredited or rejected as preposterous.
E. Ancient philosophers believed that there had to be a large landmass at the South Pole to balance the
northern continents and make the world symmetrical.
13. The plant called the scarlet gilia can have either red or white flowers. It had long been thought that
hummingbirds, which forage by day, pollinate its red flowers and that hawkmoths, which forage at
night, pollinate its white flowers. To try to show that this pattern of pollination by colors exists,
scientists recently covered some scarlet gilia flowers only at night and others only by day: plants with
red flowers covered at night became pollinated; plants with white flowers covered by day became
pollinated.
Which of the following, if true, would be an additional piece of evidence to suggest that
hummingbirds are attracted to the red flowers and hawkmoths to the white flowers of the
scarlet gilia?
A. Uncovered scarlet gilia flowers, whether red or white, became pollinated at approximately equal rates.
B. Some red flowers of the scarlet gilia that remained uncovered at all times never became pollinated.
C. White flowers of the scarlet gilia that were covered at night became pollinated with greater frequency
than white flowers of the scarlet gilia that were left uncovered.
D. Scarlet gilia plants with red flowers covered by day and scarlet gilia plants with white flowers covered
at night remained unpollinated.
E. In late August, when most of the hummingbirds had migrated but hawkmoths were still plentiful, red
scarlet gilia plants produced fruit more frequently than they had earlier in the season.
14. The average temperature of the lobster-rich waters off the coast of Foerkland has been increasing for
some years. In warmer water, lobsters grow faster. In particular, lobster larvae take less time to reach
the size at which they are no longer vulnerable to predation by young cod, the chief threat to their
survival. Consequently, the survival rate of lobster larvae must be going up, and the lobster population
in Foerkland’s coastal waters is bound to increase.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
A. There are indications that in recent years the fishing fleet operating off the coast of Foerkland has been
taking cod at an unsustainably high rate.
B. The increase in water temperatures off Foerkland has not been as pronounced as the increase in
average soil temperatures in Foerkland.
C. Because of their speeded-up growth, lobsters now get large enough to be legal catch before they reach
reproductive maturity.
D. Even though lobsters grow faster in warmer waters, warmer waters have no effect on the maximum
size to which a lobster can eventually grow.
E. Cod are a cold-water species, and the increasing water temperatures have caused a northward shift in
Foerkland’s cod population.
15. Fares on the city-run public buses in Greenville are subsidized by city tax revenues, but among the
beneficiaries of the low fares are many people who commute from outside the city to jobs in
Greenville. Some city councilors argue that city taxes should be used primarily to benefit the people
who pay them, and therefore that bus fares should be raised enough to cover the cost of the service.
Each of the following, if true, would weaken the argument advanced by the city councilors
EXCEPT:
A. Many businesses whose presence in the city is beneficial to the city’s taxpayers would relocate outside
the city if public-transit fares were more expensive.
B. By providing commuters with economic incentives to drive to work, higher transit fares would worsen
air pollution in Greenville and increase the cost of maintaining the city’s streets.
C. Increasing transit fares would disadvantage those residents of the city whose low incomes make them
exempt from city taxes, and all city councilors agree that these residents should be able to take
advantage of city-run services.
D. People who work in Greenville and earn wages above the nationally mandated minimum all pay the
city wage tax of 5 percent.
E. Voters in the city, many of whom benefit from the low transit fares, are strongly opposed to increasing
local taxes.
16. The number of aircraft collisions on the ground is increasing because of the substantial increase in the
number of flights operated by the airlines. Many of the fatalities that occur in such collisions are caused
not by the collision itself, but by an inherent flaw in the cabin design of most aircraft, in which seats, by
restricting access to emergency exits, impede escape. Therefore, to reduce the total number of
fatalities that result annually from such collisions, the airlines should be required to remove all seats
that restrict access to emergency exits.
Which one of the following proposals, if implemented together with the proposal made in the
passage, would improve the prospects for achieving the stated objective of reducing fatalities?
A. The airlines should be required, when buying new planes, to buy only planes with unrestricted access
to emergency exits.
B. The airlines should not be permitted to increase further the number of flights in order to offset the
decrease in the number of seats on each aircraft.
C. Airport authorities should be required to streamline their passenger check-in procedures to
accommodate the increased number of passengers served by the airlines.
D. Airport authorities should be required to refine security precautions by making them less conspicuous
without making them less effective.
E. The airlines should not be allowed to increase the ticket price for each passenger to offset the decrease
in the number of seats on each aircraft.
17. Scientist: An orbiting spacecraft detected a short-term spike in sulfur dioxide in Venus’s atmosphere.
Volcanoes are known to cause sulfur dioxide spikes in Earth’s atmosphere, and Venus has hundreds of
mountains that show signs of past volcanic activity. But we should not conclude that volcanic activity
caused the spike on Venus. No active volcanoes have been identified on Venus, and planetary
atmospheres are known to undergo some cyclical variations in chemical composition.
Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the scientist’s argument?
A. Conditions on Venus make it unlikely that any instrument targeting Venus would detect a volcanic
eruption directly.
B. Evidence suggests that there was a short-term spike in sulfur dioxide in Venus’s atmosphere 30 years
earlier.
C. Levels of sulfur dioxide have been higher in Venus’s atmosphere than in Earth’s atmosphere over the
long term.
D. Traces of the sulfur dioxide from volcanic eruptions on Earth are detectable in the atmosphere years
after the eruptions take place.
E. Most instances of sulfur dioxide spikes in the Earth’s atmosphere are caused by the burning of fossil
fuels.
18. In the past, when there was no highway speed limit, the highway accident rate increased yearly,
peaking a decade ago. At that time, the speed limit on highways was set at 90 kilometers per hour
(kph). Every year since the introduction of the highway speed limit, the highway accident rate has
been at least 15 percent lower than that of its peak rate. Thus, setting the highway speed limit at 90
kph has reduced the highway accident rate by at least 15 percent.
Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
A. In the years prior to the introduction of the highway speed limit, many cars could go faster than 90
kph.
B. Ten years ago, at least 95 percent of all automobile accidents in the area occurred on roads with a
speed limit of under 80 kph.
C. Although the speed limit on many highways is officially set at 90 kph, most people typically drive faster
than the speed limit.
D. Thanks to changes in automobile design in the past ten years, drivers are better able to maintain
control of their cars in dangerous situations.
E. It was not until shortly after the introduction of the highway speed limit that most cars were equipped
with features such as seat belts and airbags designed to prevent harm to passengers.
19. The advertising campaign for Roadwise auto insurance is notable for the variety of its commercials,
which range from straightforward and informative to funny and offbeat. This is unusual in the
advertising world, where companies typically strive for uniformity in advertising in order to establish
a brand identity with their target demographic. But in this case variety is a smart approach, since
purchasers of auto insurance are so demographically diverse.
Which one of the following, if true, adds the most support for the conclusion of the argument?
A. Advertising campaigns designed to target one demographic sometimes appeal to a wider group of
people than expected.
B. Consistent efforts to establish a brand identity are critical for encouraging product interest and
improving company recognition.
C. Fewer people are influenced by auto insurance commercials than by commercials for other types of
products.
D. Advertising campaigns that target one demographic often alienate people who are not part of the
target demographic.
E. Efforts to influence a target demographic do not pay off when the content of the advertising campaign
falls short.
20. Michaela: I think doctors who complain about patients doing medical research on the Internet are
being a little unfair. It seems only natural that a patient would want to know as much as possible about
his or her condition.
Sam: It is not unfair. Doctors have undergone years of training. How can you maintain that a doctor’s
opinion is not worth more than something an untrained person comes up with after searching the
Internet?
Sam’s response indicates that he interpreted Michaela’s remarks to mean that
A. health information found on the Internet is trustworthy
B. the opinion of a patient who has done Internet research on his or her condition should have at least as
much weight as the opinion of a doctor
C. the opinion of a patient’s own doctor should not be given more weight than the opinions of doctors
published on websites
D. a doctor’s explanation of a patient’s symptoms should be taken more seriously than the patient’s own
view of his or her symptoms
E. patients who do not research their conditions on the Internet give their doctors’ opinions more
consideration
1. A
2. C
3. C
4. E
5. B
6. A
7. B
8. A
9. E
10. A
11. E
12. E
13. D
14. C
15. E
16. B
17. A
18. D
19. D
20. B