3. Over the past fifteen years, the largely urbanized Northeastern United States has shown more and more the influence of the Southwestern portion of the county. Once, very few people in New York City could be found sorting cowboy boots and Stetson hats, and no major radio station boasted twenty-four-hour-a-day programming of country and western music. The latest development is the rapid proliferation of restaurants serving chili, nachos, burritos, and other Tex-Mex dishes.
The passage above makes which of the following assumptions?
A) The lifestyle of people in the Northeast has been enriched by the influence of the Southwestern states.
B) Most residents of the Southwestern states regularly eat at Tex-Mex restaurants.
C) Over the last fifteen years, residents of the Southwestern United States have increasingly adopted lifestyles similar to those of the Northeast.
D) Tex-Mex dishes are an element of the regional cuisine of the Southwestern states.
E) People in the Northeastern United States eat out more frequently than they did fifteen years ago.
4. Popular culture in the United States has become Europeanized to an extent unimaginable twenty-five years ago. Not many people then drank wine with meals, and no one drank important mineral water. No idea would have been more astonishing than that Americans would pay to watch soccer games. Such thoughts arise because of a report that the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials has just adopted a proposal to develop the country’s first comprehensive interstate system of routes for bicycles.
Which of the following inferences is best supported by the passage?
A) Long-distance bicycle routes are used in Europe.
B) Drinking imported mineral water is a greater luxury than drinking imported wine.
C) United States culture has benefited from exposure to foreign ideas.
D) Most Europeans make regular use of bicycles.
E) The influence of the United States on European Culture has assumed unprecedented proportions in the last twenty-five years.