Inferences Practice Test

A company piloted a four-day, 32-hour week in 12 departments that otherwise saw no policy changes. In those departments, average absenteeism fell from six to four days per employee compared with the prior quarter. Elsewhere, a major reorganization unrelated to the pilot coincided with a rise in absenteeism over the same period. Because the control group experienced a disruptive change while the pilot group did not, comparing pilot results to companywide trends would mix the effect of the schedule with the effect of the reorganization. Given these constraints, the firm can conclude only that the pilot correlated with a reduction in absenteeism within participating departments, and that _______.

Excavations at Tell Aran recovered carbonized seeds from occupation layers spanning 300 years. In the earliest layers, hulled barley and emmer wheat dominated, with small amounts of drought-tolerant broomcorn millet. Lake-sediment cores from the region indicate a multi-decade arid interval midway through the sequence. In layers dated to that interval, broomcorn millet and other drought-tolerant grains make up a much larger share of the seed assemblage; after the interval, the proportions partially revert. Contemporary texts from a nearby trade hub mention decreased grain imports during the same arid period. These lines of evidence do not reveal farmers' intentions, but they do show a shift in what was being grown and consumed at the site during the arid interval: _______.