GMATPrep CR

[akhilsuhag]

Which of the following most logically completes the argument below?

Twenty percent of the stores in Morganville's downtown shopping district will fail within five years because they will be competing directly with the SaveMart discount department store newly opened in East Morganville. The downtown shopping district has lost business at this rate before and has always completely rebounded. Confidence that it will rebound again from the losses it is now about to suffer is ill founded, however, because ________ .

(A) the stores like to be put out of business by direct competition from SaveMart are the downtown shopping district's anchor stores, on whose ability to draw shoppers many of the other downtown stores depend.

(B) the bus line that has long connected the downtown are of Morganville with EastMorganville has a tradition of carrying shoppers who reside in EastMorganville into downtown Morganville to shop.

(C) when the downtown shopping district has rebounded before, the business premises of a failed business were typically taken over by a business of same kind as had been there before

(D) SaveMart's business plan for the EastMorgalvill store is based on earning low profits, if any, during the first five years of the store's existence.

(E) it is conceivable that the downtown shopping district could shrink substantially without collapsing altogether

Would appreciate if we could discuss options. I narrowed down to (A) and (C). C because if the same business opens up it will again compete with SaveMart and dies, which results in a vicious cycle of businesses never succeeding. And (A) of course is a very clear weakener. How do we separate the two.

[MartyMurray]

The way you are looking at C is too much of a story.

So C says that when businesses have failed, later, similar businesses have sprung up again. Is there some clear reason why this won't happen again? Is there some clear reason, without your coming up with a story, that this is necessarily a bad thing? Not really.

A, on the other hand, provides a clear reason why things are different this time.

Coming up with too much of a story is one way people choose wrong answers to CR questions.

In some cases one could come up with a story so that an answer choice strengthens an argument, while making up a different story to go along with the same answer choice weakens the argument.

So when doing CR, be careful about extrapolating too much or going too far from what is actually said in answer choices.

[GMATGuruNY]

Twenty percent of the stores in Morganville's downtown shopping district will fail within five years because they will be competing directly with the Savemart discount department store newly opened in East Morganville. The downtown shopping district has lost business at this rate before and has always completey rebounded. Confidence that it will rebound again from the losses it is now about to suffer is ill founded, however, because _____________________.

A) the stores likely to be put out of business by direct competition from Savemart are the downton shopping district's anchor stores, on whose ability to draw shoppers many of the other downtown stores depend

B) the bus line that has long connected the downtown area of Morganville with East Morganville has a tradition of carrying shoppers who reside in East Morganville into downtown Morganville to shop

C) when the downtown shopping district has rebounded before, the business premises of a failed business were typically taken over by a business of the same kind as had been there before

D) Savemart's business plan for the East Morganville store is based on earning low profits, if any, during the first 5 years of store's existence

E) it is conceivable that the downtown shopping district could shrink substantially without collapsing altogether

Premise: The downtown shopping district has lost business at this rate BEFORE and has always completey rebounded.
Conclusion: Confidence that it will rebound again from the losses it is NOW about to suffer is ill-founded.

The strengthen the conclusion, the correct answer must BREAK THE LINK between NOW and BEFORE: it must explain why THIS TIME will be DIFFERENT from PREVIOUS TIMES.

A: The stores likely to be put out of business by direct competition from Savemart are the downtown shopping district's anchor stores, on whose ability to draw shoppers many of the other downtown stores depend.
This answer choice explain why THIS TIME will be different: without the anchor stores, shoppers won't be drawn to the remaining downtown stores, strengthening the conclusion that THIS TIME the downtown district will not rebound.

The correct answer is A.

C: When the downtown shopping district has rebounded before, the business premises of a failed business were typically taken over by a business of the same kind as had been there before.
This answer choice tells us only about PREVIOUS TIMES.
It does not tell us why THIS TIME will be different.
Eliminate C.

[Nina1987]

GMATGuruNY / Marty / Other Experts:

(B) the bus line that has long connected the downtown are of Morganville with EastMorganville has a tradition of carrying shoppers who reside in EastMorganville into downtown Morganville to shop.

Is'nt B saying that this time it's different since the competing store i.e. SaveMart is in the very location from which downtown shopping district used to draw customers. Since SaveMart is in this area these customer can shopping locally rather travelling all the way to downtown.

(D) SaveMart's business plan for the EastMorgalvill store is based on earning low profits, if any, during the first five years of the store's existence.

Again I thought this was also saying this time it's different. Since SaveMarts plans to earn low profit for intial 5 years, it will prove to be an especially belligerent competitor and will try its fiercest to put downtown district out of business.

Thks!

[MartyMurray]

GMATGuruNY / Marty / Other Experts:

(B) the bus line that has long connected the downtown are of Morganville with EastMorganville has a tradition of carrying shoppers who reside in EastMorganville into downtown Morganville to shop.

Is'nt B saying that this time it's different since the competing store i.e. SaveMart is in a very location from which downtown shopping district used to draw customers. Since SaveMart is in this area these customer can shopping locally rather travelling all the way to downtown.

(D) SaveMart's business plan for the EastMorgalvill store is based on earning low profits, if any, during the first five years of the store's existence.

Again I thought this was also saying this time it's different. Since SaveMarts plans to earn low profit for intial 5 years, it will prove to be an especially belligerent competitor and will try its fiercest to put downtown district out of business.

Thks!

Hi Nina1987.

While there is some logic to what you are saying, the answers that you brought up do not support the argument as clearly as the OA does.

That the Savemart will be a significant competitor to the stores in downtown Morganville has already been acknowledged, in that a full twenty percent of the stores are expected to fail within five years of the opening of the Savemart. Failure along those lines has happened before. So we need clear reason to believe that this time the downtown shopping district will not recover.

Choice B seems to indicate that there will be a reduction in shoppers going from East Morganville to the downtown shopping district, but is this clearly different from other times? Are the shoppers from East Morganville a significant percentage of the shoppers who shop downtown? If they are a signficant percentage, why in this case will the downtown shopping district be particularly hard hit? We don't have answers to these and other questions. So this answer choice does not clearly support the conclusion that the downtown shopping district will not recover as it has before.

Similarly, choice D does not clearly show how this time is different. This choice implies that after the first five years the Savemart will go into profit making mode. The point of the argument is that the downtown shopping district will not be able to recover from what happens over the next five years, but if the Savemart starts operating differently after five years, perhaps the downtown district will be able to recover at that point.

Now consider the OA. Choice A indicates that the Savemart will compete with and put out of business the stores that are the foundation of the business success of downtown shopping district. Unlike B, which may seem to indicate but does not clearly indicate that there is reason to believe that the downtown district will not recover, and D, which indicates that the downtown district may be able to recover after five years, A provides a clear, logical reason to believe that the downtown district will be clearly affected in the long term by the opening of the Savemart.

The takeaway here is that the right answer to this type of CR question will go generally go beyond being possibly supportive to being rather clearly supportive of the conclusion, and to find the right answers you have to be good at seeing the difference between seemingly or possibly supportive and clearly supportive.