Critical Reasoning

Although the discount stores in Goreville's central shopping district are expected to close within five years as a result of competition from a SpendLess discount department store that just opened, those locations will not stay vacant for long. In the five years since the opening of Colson's, a nondiscount department store, a new store has opened at the location of every store in the shopping district that closed because it could not compete with Colson's.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A. Many customers of Colson's are expected to do less shopping there than they did
before the SpendLess store opened.

B. Increasingly, the stores that have opened in the central shopping district since
Colson's opened have been discount stores.

C. At present, the central shopping district has as many stores operating in it as it
ever had.

D. Over the course of the next five years, it is expected that Goreville's population
will grow at a faster rate than it has for the past several decades.

E. Many stores in the central shopping district sell types of merchandise that are not
available at either SpendLess or Colson's.

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN THE MEANING OF THE ARGUMENT?

You are comparing two events.

First, a department store, Colson's, moved to the area and some businesses closed. However, all of these locations had another business take the empty space.

Next, a DISCOUNT department store, SpendLess, is entering the area and some businesses are EXPECTED to close. The conclusion is that the closed businesses will eventually be replaced because something similar has already happened.

Why would that not be the case?

B --> if you had discount stores filling in the place of regular stores then these discount stores will struggle to compete with a larger discount store.

Hi Jim,

I thought B strengthens rather than weakens and picked E!

If discount stores struggle to compete with larger discount store i.e., Spendless, they will eventually close, strengthening the argument. However, E, if the stores deal in items that larger discount store does not then the customer base of stores will not be affected, weaking the argument. ?

Jim,
Can you re-explain this. Its a bit typical one to understand