GMAT Verbal Reasoning Practice Test 1

Including the fact that the poverty line is regularly raised to account for inflation would significantly strengthen the conclusion that more families were living in poverty in 1990 despite the lower percentage of families under the poverty line.Choice A is an opinion that expresses anger at statistical manipulation but does not provide a premise that would further support the conclusion. Choice B offers information that might help account for a normal difference in the number offamilies living in poverty, but the passage doesn’t argue that fewer families were in poverty in 1990; rather, it argues the opposite. Choice C is essentially irrelevant. Democrats and Republicans may have certain agendas and institute certain social policies, but this is not relevant unless the reader knows a specific Democratic or Republican measure taken to affect the poverty level. Choice E suggests that many more poor people needed assistance in 1990 than 1980, but it isessentially irrelevant without further information showing the correlation between welfare recipients and the poverty line; it may be an apples-to-oranges comparison. You would need to know if any significant changes in welfare policy occurred in the interim.