About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Sunday, April 20, 2025

The 14th Amendment Denies Birthright Citizenship To Children Of Illegal Aliens

The most fundamental question a country must answer pertains to defining its citizenship requirements - this is more of a bedrock matter than the issues we discuss every day - tax policy, healthcare, climate change, the national debt, the budget deficit, & even adequate national defense.


This post will explain the history of American citizenship as it pertains to the 14th Amendment & in particular show how the claim to birthright citizenship by illegal aliens for their children born on American soil is one of the worst abuses & exploitations ever inflicted on the United States.

Every day foreigners illegally enter the United States, like hiding in the trunk of a car @ midnight, to claim citizenship for babies born on American soil.  The Pew Research Center estimates that approximately 295,000 such babies (known as anchor babies) were born to parents who were not authorized to be in the United States in 2013 representing 8% of the 3.9 million U.S. births that year.  If the foreigners are pursued by the authorities before the baby is born & the foreigners leave the country the baby is not claimed to be an American citizen.  Who can think this game of hide & go seek is what the writers of the Constitution intended?

The anchor baby scam has existed mostly around our southwest border for decades but more recently Chinese couples have participated in "birthright tourism" schemes where pregnant Chinese women are coached on how to trick U.S. customs inspectors including how to hide their pregnancy & then stay in a "maternity hotel" until giving birth to what they think is a U.S. citizen.

The ultimate benefit of having an anchor baby is that the child becomes the source of what's known as "chain migration" where the entire family moves to America for a better life including a better education & healthcare.  These people selfishly butt in line ahead of people who have applied for citizenship following the rules to come to America & assimilate.  The assimilation of immigrants into American culture has been an important feature of U.S. history.  Immigrants breaking into America on their own terms with no interest in assimilating only divides the nation.

The claim to birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens is based on Section1 (the Citizenship Clause) of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution that reads "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, & subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States & of the State wherein they reside." 

This text seems straightforward enough except for the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof."  Accordingly,  we need to find out if the history surrounding the writing & ratification of the amendment reveals the clear meaning of the text as well as confirmation that the people of the day had this understanding of the finding.

The 14th Amendment, along with the 13th & 15th Amendments, are collectively known as the Reconstruction Amendments.  They were ratified in the aftermath of the Civil War to address issues of slavery & racial equality.  Specifically, the 14th Amendment's purpose was to settle the question of citizenship of the newly freed slaves (by the 13th Amendment ratified on December 5, 1865) by overturning the Supreme Court's 1857 Dred Scott decision which held that no black of African descent could be a citizen of the United States.  The 14th Amendment was not written specifically to address illegal aliens having anchor babies born in America that automatically become American citizens if for no other reason than there was no such thing as an illegal alien when the amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868.  The Amendment's authors' references to foreigners in this post covers illegal aliens. 

The Civil Rights Act of 1866, introduced on January 5, 1866, was the immediate predecessor of the 14th Amendment - the Act's first clause reads "All persons born in the United States & not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United states."

The principal author of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment was Senator Jacob Howard of Michigan who eliminated the phrase "Indians not taxed" from the text of the 14th Amendment.  Howard did not intend to make Indians citizens of the United States with his new language & explained that "Indians born within the limits of the United States, & who maintain their tribal relations, are not, in the sense of this amendment, born subject to the jurisdiction of the United States."

Illinois Senator Lyman Trumbull, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed this understanding saying "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" meant "not owing allegiance to anybody else . . . subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States."  The "anybody else" means any foreign nation or tribe whatsoever & "complete jurisdiction of the United States" is to owe no allegiance to any other country or tribe, i.e., exclusive allegiance to the United States.  Indians, he went on, were not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States because they owed allegiance, even if only partial, to their tribes.  Accordingly, the 14th Amendment was consistent with the Civil Rights Act of 1866 to establish two requirements of United States citizenship: 1) born or naturalized in the United States & 2) subject to its jurisdiction.

So right here the claim of birthright citizenship of the children of illegal aliens is seen to be false.

Going further - "jurisdiction" did not mean simply subject to the laws of the United States or subject to its courts; it meant much more, specifically, "jurisdiction" meant exclusive "allegiance" to the United States which of course illegal aliens & their children did not have.

Senator Howard explained that the requirement of "jurisdiction" understood in the sense of "allegiance," "will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United  States."  See image below.









click on image to enlarge.

And of course the authors of the 14th Amendment affirmed that all persons in the United States are subject to United States  law, i.e., both obligated to protect it & entitled to its protection - but not everyone on United States soil had complete allegiance to the United States.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Senator Edgar Cowan of Pennsylvania clarifies:

"If a traveler comes here from Ethiopia, from Australia, or from Great Britain, he is entitled, to a certain extent, to the protection of the laws. You cannot murder him with impunity. It is murder to kill him, the same as it is to kill another man. You cannot commit assault & battery on him, I apprehend. He has a right to the protection of the laws; but he is not a citizen in the ordinary acceptation of the word."

Senator Cowan provided examples above of the partial jurisdiction that any sovereign state claims over aliens on its soil.  I provide the example of an Englishman here on vacation - he clearly has to abide by our laws while here like driving on the right side of the road - not the left.  He is subject to our partial or territorial jurisdiction but not our complete jurisdiction - he cannot be drafted into our Army, vote in American elections, or be tried for treason because his complete allegiance is to England.  When a foreign tourist leaves America the ephemeral jurisdiction he was subject to while here disappears (ceases to exist).  By comparison, when a United States citizen (or green-card holder) travels outside the United States they maintain their citizenship status including being subject to the income tax laws & military draft if in effect - this is true even if the move is permanent.

Chief Justice John Marshall addressed this ephemeral jurisdiction by saying in Schooner Exchange v. McFaddon (1812) that foreigners here on "business or caprice" owe a "temporary & local allegiance" to the United States & are therefore "amenable to the jurisdiction of the country" while they are here.  The ephemeral jurisdiction Chief Justice Marshall described was clearly different from the complete jurisdiction required by the Citizenship Clause.

Senator Howard further clarified the meaning of the jurisdiction clause, endorsing the above interpretation of Senator Trumbull:

"I concur entirely with the honorable Senator from Illinois, in holding that the word “jurisdiction,” as here employed, ought to be construed so as to imply a full and complete jurisdiction on the part of the United States, coextensive in all respects with the constitutional power of the United States, whether exercised by Congress, by the executive, or by the judicial department; that is to say, the same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now."

By definition - 1) the “constitutional power of the United States” is not “coextensive” with foreign nations, i.e., they do not reach the same boundaries or cover the same area, & 2) the “same jurisdiction in extent and quality as applies to every citizen of the United States now” cannot apply to foreigners. To claim otherwise is to claim that U.S. law applies to foreigners even when they are residing in their own countries!  It is to claim, in effect, that U.S. law rules the world.  Which it does not.

Maryland Senator Reverdy Johnson added yet another supportive, clarifying comment:

"Now, all this amendment provides is that all persons born in the United States & not subject to some foreign Power—for that, no doubt, is the meaning of the committee who have brought the matter before us—shall be considered as citizens of the United States.  That would seem to be not only a wise but a necessary provision. If there are to be citizens of the United States entitled everywhere to the character of citizens of the United States there should be some certain definition of what citizenship is, what has created the character of citizen as between himself & the United States, & the amendment says that citizenship may depend upon birth, & I know of no better way to give rise to citizenship than the fact of birth within the territory of the United States, born of parents who at the time were subject to the authority of the United States."

Senator Johnson's remarks address the anchor baby problem plaguing America today.  He expresses the common sense that if the parents are in the country illegally that the child is also & should not be awarded citizenship.  In addition, wouldn't the country where the parents are citizens expect the child to be a citizen of that country?  This would be true for illegal aliens or a pregnant French tourist who has a child early while on vacation in America - wouldn't France say the child is a French citizen?

In an earlier debate, explaining to the House the purpose & meaning of the citizenship clause of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, Ohio Congressman John Bingham said:

"I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen."

The source of the foregoing quotes are from a piece entitled Birthright Citizenship: A Response To My Critics by Michael Anton, lecturer & research fellow @ Hillsdale College & senior fellow @ the Claremont Institute.  The actual quotes come from the Congressional Globe, an ancestor to the Congressional Record, which records congressional debates.  All of the senators' quotes are from the Senate debate on the 14th Amendment, May 30, 1866.

Based on the above documentation it is clear that the authors of the 14th Amendment did not intend for the children of illegal aliens to become citizens of the United States based on the child's birth in America.  The 14th Amendment was ratified on July 9, 1868 when the 28th state legislature out of thirty-seven approved the Amendment.  In ratifying the 14th Amendment the state legislatures confirmed the authors' intent being understood by the contemporary public as evidenced by the following five examples that occurred in the years after ratification.  Please note that all three branches of government acknowledged in these examples (two judiciary, two executive, & one legislative) that birthright citizenship was not automatically conferred to children of foreigners or anybody who did not have complete & full allegiance to the United States   

This understanding was confirmed in the 1873 Slaughterhouse cases contested before the Supreme Court.  The syllabus of the decision included a statement that the phrase "subject to its jurisdiction thereof" in the Fourteenth Amendment was intended to exclude children of foreign ministers, consuls, and foreign citizens/subjects born within the United States.  

Specifically on pages 83 U.S. 72 & 73 of the decision made on April 14, 1873: '"The first section of the fourteenth article to which our attention is more specially invited opens with a definition of citizenship . . . The phrase, "subject to its jurisdiction" was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States."'

The SCOTUS writeup in the Slaughterhouse cases certainly confirms the understanding that birthright citizenship is not automatically conveyed to children born in the United States of illegal aliens, although this finding was not the primary purpose of the case, which dealt with the question of whether the 14th Amendment extended the privileges or Immunities of the State Action Clause (aka the Privileges or Immunities clause) to the States.

In 1879, acting Secretary of State Frederick Seward reviewed the case of the late James W. Smith, an expatriate who had served in the Mexican army & had two minor sons aged seven & ten @ the time of his death.  Secretary Seward concluded that the boys would not be American citizens if the father's change of allegiance from the United States to Mexico had occurred before the boys were born in America, if Mexico attached Mexican nationalism to them while still minors, or if they remained in Mexico & became Mexican citizens.  The boys were awarded American citizenship because the father's change of allegiance occurred after the birth of the youngest child. 

In the Elk v. Wilkins case (1884) the Supreme Court decided that a native Indian who had renounced allegiance to his tribe did not become "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States simply by his renunciation.  "The alien & dependent condition of the members of the Indian Tribes could not be put off @ their own will, without the action or assent of the United States" signified either by treaty or legislation.  Neither the "Indian Tribes" nor "individual members of those Tribes," no more than "other foreigners" can "become citizens of their own will."  Source - Edward Erler, The Heritage Guide To The Constitution, page 385.

In 1885 the State Department rejected the citizenship claim of Ludwig Hausding - a man born in Michigan to parents who had not been naturalized.  In so doing the Secretary of State relied on the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment saying "the fact of birth, under circumstances implying alien subjection, establishes of itself no right of citizenship."

Congress confirmed that the understanding of the writers & ratifiers of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment pertains to the issuance of the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.  This act was necessary because Indians were not considered citizens of the United States.  Why? Because, although born on American soil, they owed their political allegiance to their tribal government, not the government of the United States.

The above five examples verify the original understanding of the people when, & for years thereafter, the 14th Amendment was ratified; namely that children born in the United States of illegal aliens were not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States & therefore they were not citizens of the United States.   But over time, especially during FDR's administration, the Supreme Court's interpretation of the 14th Amendment shifted from its original meaning to a more expansive view particularly when FDR & subsequent presidents began to bestow more rights on individuals including dual citizenship that became officially recognized in 1967 when the Supreme Court struck down most laws that had banned dual citizenship (Afroyim v. Rusk).

In 1898 the Supreme Court heard the case United States v. Wong Kim Ark - a case involving a plaintiff born in the United States to parents who had full legal-resident status & owned a business (they were not temporary visitors to the United States & they were not illegal aliens) - they were subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States.  The SCOTUS found that Wong Kim Ark was a citizen of the United States relying on both English common law regarding jus soli & the natural born citizen requirement of Article II, Section 1, Clause 5.  This is the case that Progressives rely on when they claim anybody born in the United States is a citizen.  The reality is that the Supreme Court has never done an analysis like the one I present hereinbefore nor made a ruling or determination that the children of illegal aliens are citizens of the United States merely because of the child's birth in the United States.

It is insulting to the intelligence of every American citizen for Progressives to claim that the authors of the 14th Amendment intended that children born during their mother's illegal presence in the United States automatically receive citizenship thereby becoming the direct beneficiary of their parents breaking our laws.  Their continued presence in the United States depends on evading the law rather than submitting to it or showing allegiance to America.  Who in their right mind thinks our Constitution confers a benefit based on an illegal act?

We should put an end to this malicious exploitation in the next five minutes.

Reference - Trump's Executive Order dated January 20, 2025 denying birthright citizenship to children of illegal & non-resident aliens

Sunday, March 30, 2025

A Strikingly Different Education From Today's - Bullitt County's 1912 Eighth Grade Examination

"Live as if you were to die tomorrow.  Learn as if you were to live forever."  Mahatma Gandhi - a distillation of his teachings
















click on photo to enlarge

One of the themes of this blog is the importance of education & in particular what you do with that education to obtain a prosperous, happy, & fulfilling life.  South Carolina Senator Tim Scott calls "a quality education the closest thing to magic in America today.  It is the great equalizer.  It is the issue that allows for each & every family today living in poverty to believe that the American dream is alive, it is well, & healthy, & coming their way."

But the last three posts (really most of the education posts of the past several years) have focused on the decline in student learning & the failures of our education system that have led to shortages of all kinds of professions - e.g., doctors, engineers, pharmacists, air traffic controllers, policemen, & more

I know young people who do not aspire to the aforementioned professions & have worked to become plumbers, welders, & auto mechanics.  But they had to learn their skills somewhere like under the tutelage of a skilled tradesman.  

Unfortunately I also know young people who are going to work for the post office supposedly for the security of the American Postal Workers Union (APWU), the National Association Of Letter Carriers (NALC), or the National Postal Mail Handlers Union (NPMHU).  Yet even here some USPS jobs require a mandatory 70% minimum score on the Virtual Entry Assessment, aka the Mail Carrier Test.  Much like applying for a job as a toll taker next to an E-ZPass lane this is not a worthwhile pursuit of a fulfilling career.  It is short sighted - a lot can go wrong.

Regardless of how successful any of these tradesmen or union employees may become, they probably stayed in school through the eighth grade & if they couldn't read & do math @ an 8th grade proficiency level they were @ a disadvantage going into the world whenever they finished school.  Those who were successful most likely worked to remove their eighth grade shortcomings & those who didn't are part of the occupational shortages the country is experiencing.

I know of an industrial accident in a metal finishing plating facility involving aluminum & hydrofluoric acid.  Turned out that the operator could not read.  Upon finding this out the superintendent of the facility said he did not want anyone in that plant who could not read or measure.  Click here to see the chemical reaction in a laboratory experiment & then just imagine the danger of the explosive hydrogen fumes shooting as high as the 35 foot ceiling in the plating room - all caused by someone who couldn't read.

Whether you have aspirations to be a neurosurgeon like Ben Carson (whose mother could not read but made sure her sons could), or a plumber or stone mason, or a letter carrier - it is to your benefit to be able to read & do math after leaving the eighth grade.

Now there is a connection between poorly educated people, obesity, & government dependence.  You can't expect poorly educated people to know or practice good nutrition. The National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases reports for adults that 30.7% are overweight, 42.4% have obesity, & 9.2% have severe obesity (Body Mass Index of 40+).  For children & adolescence ages 2 to 19 it is 16.1% overweight, 19.3% have obesity, & 6.1 % have severe obesity.

And don't think that just going to college is the universal panacea for what ails us,  Neither the high school graduate tradesmen or college graduate engineer or accountant have been taught American history in decades - it is extremely dangerous & very likely that a country can be easily changed whose people are unfamiliar with its history & heritage - in our case the founding principles of limited government, personal responsibility, & free enterprise.  Being poorly educated, fat, lazy, & having no will or interest to distinguish right from wrong pretty much described the people in the Roman Empire right before it fell.  

Andy Kessler reports in his March 17 WSJ column that "in 2024, only 22% of Chicago 11th-graders could read @ grade level.  Only 19% were proficient in math."  After decades of similar statistics, who can think this is working out well for these people or the country?  Businesses aren't hiring these people, they are investing in robots.

Contrast all of the foregoing with the following 1912 Eighth Grade Examination for Bullitt County Schools presented by the Bullitt County, Kentucky museum pictured above.  Students had to pass the exam to finish eighth grade & become eligible for high school.  There was no internet to make people smarter - I know it has made me a lot smarter.  And there was no OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini to use to cheat their way through school like is happening more & more today in a new era that takes grade inflation to another level.

1912 Eighth Grade Examination for Bullitt County Schools

This copy of the Eighth Grade Exam for Bullitt County Schools in 1912 was donated to the museum. We thought you might like to see what the test looked like more than a hundred years ago. Obviously it tested some things that were more relevant at that time than now, and it should not be used to compare student knowledge then and now.

Note that there are several typesetting mistakes on the test including a mistake in the spelling list. The word "eneeavor" should be "endeavor." This version of the exam was probably a master version given out to the schools (note that the spelling words wouldn’t be written on a test.) The museum has been told that the exam was handed out in a scroll form (that is why the paper is long.) The typos would have been corrected simply by contacting the teachers and telling them to mark their copies accordingly, much like would be done today. And there might not be quite as many typos as you think; "Serbia" for example was indeed spelled "Servia" back then.

Bullitt County Schools were mostly one-room schools in those days, scattered around the rural county. Students came together at the county courthouse once or twice a year to take this "Common Exam." It was apparently a big deal. The local newspaper urged students to do well, even urging seventh graders that it was not too early to start preparing. Some scholarships were provided to those who passed to go on to high school, which was also a big deal back then. In those days, high school was sometimes another county away and a rare thing for many farm children to be able to otherwise attend.

And remember to smile a little while reading this exam. It has been great fun, as well as a challenge, to think about the questions, and to come up with answers for 1912 and for today. For example, it has been interesting to see disagreements on even the basics, such as what is a "cord," much less the actual answer to the question, or the much more controversial questions about government and about "who discovered...". Smile. We are all learning from this test.

Our staff has put together possible answers on another page for your amusement.

1912 School Exam

Sunday, March 9, 2025

Replacing The LSAT With The GRE May Be Just The Needed "Trick"

The last post linked the shortages of qualified people in the labor force, both now & in the future, to the high percentage of people who can not read @ a basic level by the 8th grade. The post went into detail regarding shortages of doctors, policemen, male public school teachers, engineers, & more that affect our lives negatively.

Conspicuous by its absence in the post was a discussion of lawyers.  A charter subscriber to this blog picked this up & wrote "I know a young fellow striving for a law degree, does well in class work, & teachers think he is very capable.  His next step is passing the LSATs & money.  But most of the questions on the LSATs do not apply to the law, so it comes to comprehension, ability to understand, knowledge, awareness, perception, discernment, & interpretation so if there is a trick he can follow I will relay the information to him.  And yes he is working."

The "trick" that our subscriber is looking for may lie in the test that the "young fellow" is studying for.  Yes, the LSAT (Law School Admission Test) is used by law schools to help evaluate applicants, but starting in 2016 some law schools started to accept GRE (Graduate Record Exam) scores so that today about half the law schools including Columbia, Harvard, & Georgetown on down accept scores from both tests.

My sister-in-law, a lawyer, told me that "the LSATs do not apply to the law" as our subscriber writes, but are geared to determine how the applicant thinks.  The LSAT is taken with pencils & paper & consists of five, 35-minute sections measuring analytical & logical reasoning & reading comprehension.   The GRE could be a better fit for a non-traditional law school candidate with an impressive application including a high GPA & extra curricular activities.  Such a candidate might be more comfortable because the GRE is taken by computer figuring out definitive answers to questions involving algebra, geometry, trigonometry, & calculus in addition to reading comprehension, vocabulary, & writing.  Something like the quizzes I present from time to time.  Both tests are difficult.

Although schools started to say in 2016 they were flexible in accepting either test in order to attract students from a wider variety of backgrounds, particularly in STEM fields, it is also true that there had been a falloff in applicants & matriculants from 2010 each year to 2015.  You would not be far off to think accepting the GRE was an attempt to stop this downward trend - which did stop in 2016 although it cannot be concluded that accepting the GRE was the reason.  See graphic below - source of the next two graphics is the Law Professor Blogs Network (Jerry Organ).









Click on graphic to enlarge


With the above downward trend in overall applications came a corresponding downward trend from 2010 to 2015 of the best & brightest law school students defined as those with LSAT scores of 165+ (above 90th percentile) that also did not start to turn around until 2016.  Such applicants would be competitive @ virtually any law school in the country.  Unfortunately, the number of students with scores from 150 to 159 continued the downward trend in 2016 while those @ the bottom of the scale (140 to 149) had a slight increase.  LSAT scores range from 120 to 180.  See graphic below for the trend of those students with LSATs of 165+.










Click on graphic to enlarge

Law School enrollment continued to increase after 2016 but has fallen the past two years.  Acceptance of the GRE gets some of the credit for the small increase in enrollment after 2016.  See graphic below - source LawHub.









Click on graphic to enlarge


So lawyers join the many other professions highlighted on this blog that have declined in number the past fifteen years.  Fairly or not, the reputation of lawyers is low (like that of Congress who is made up of lawyers) so to moan about a shortage of lawyers will not bring much sympathy.  Still, a good lawyer can be very valuable when closing on a house, getting a divorce, helping with taxes on a financial plan, or teaching constitutional law correctly.

And the compensation is still very good for those with the 165+ LSAT scores who graduate from a top law school.  See graphic below.









Click on graphic to enlarge


So the "trick" our subscriber may be looking for concerning his friend's problem with the LSATs may be to find a law school that will accept the GRE results.  I hope it works for them.

I present below a sample question from both the LSAT & the GRE for the "young fellow" & the entire readership to consider.  Send me your comments on the LSAT & the solution to the GRE question.  I will post appropriate comments from the LSAT question & all correct answers to the GRE question or alternatively send the correct answer to any one who requests it.

Just think - being able to answer questions like the following in the real world is what making $200,000 per year is all about for someone in their 20s with a first class law degree.

Sample LSAT Question

In trying to reduce the amount of fat in their diet, on average people have decreased their consumption of red meat by one-half in the last two decades.  However, on average those who have reduced their consumption of red meat actually consume substantially more fat than those who have not.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy described above?

A. Many more people have reduced their consumption of red meat over the last two decades than have not.

B. Higher prices over the last two decades have done as much to decrease the consumption of red meat as health concerns have.

C. People who reduce their consumption of red meat tend to consume as much of other foods that are high in fat as do those who have not reduced their consumption of red meat.

D. People who reduce their consumption of red meat tend to replace it with cheese and baked goods, which are richer in fat than red meat.

E. Studies have shown that red meat contains slightly less fat than previously thought.

Sample GRE Question

A developer has land that has x feet of lake frontage. The land is to be subdivided into lots, each of which is to have either 80 feet or 100 feet of lake frontage. If 1⁄9 of the lots are to have 80 feet of frontage each and the remaining 40 lots are to have 100 feet of frontage each, what is the value of x?