Mini Mocks for Verbal 2

In a large company, ...(29)... people is about as common as using a gun or a switch-blade to ...(30)... an argument. As a result, most managers have little or no experience of firing people, and they find it emotionally automatic, as result, they often delay the act interminably, much as an unhappy spouse will prolong a bad marriage. And when the firing is done, it's often done clumsily, with far worse side effects than are necessary.
Do the world-class software organizations have a different way of firing people? No. But they do the deed swiftly, humanely, and professionally.
The key point here is to view the fired employee as a "failed product" and to ask how the process ...(31)... such a phenomenon in the first place.

Von Neumann and Morgenstern assume a decision framework in which all options are thoroughly considered, each option being independent of the others, with a numerical value derived for the utility of each possible outcome (these outcomes reflecting, in turn, all possible combinations of choices). The decision is then made to maximize the expected utility.
... (26)... such a model reflects major simplifications of the way decisions are made in the real worlD) Humans are not to process information as quickly and effectively as the model assumes; they tend not to think ...(27)... as easily as the model calls for; they often deal with a particular option without really assessing its ...(28)... and when they do assess alternatives, they may be externally nebulous about their criteria of evaluation.

Directions: Each question below has two blanks. There are five pairs of words below each sentence. Each pair is, numbered. Choose the pair of words which can be filled up in the blanks in the sentence in the same order so as to complete the sentence meaningfully.