Critical Reasoning

The industrial city of Silverton is going through a recession, and within a year, all small domestically-owned steel mills in the city are expected to go out of business permanently due to competition with Globo-Steel, a large domestically-owned steel mill that opened in a neighboring city last year. However, these mills will surely re-open shortly after they close; since the foreign-owned steel company Gigante Gruppo came to Silverton last year, every mill that has closed temporarily due to competition with Gigante Gruppo has re-opened, usually with the same ownership, within a month.

Which of the following, if true, is most likely to undermine the conclusion of this argument?

* (A)Several major clients of Gigante Gruppo have recently switched to Globo-Steel due to trade laws that give tax breaks to clients of domestic heavy industry.
*
(B) Many steel mills in Silverton create galvanized steel that doesn't rust, a popular variety of steel that is not sold by either Gigante Gruppo or Globo-Steel.
your answer
* (C) Silverton has more steel mills operational today than it has ever had in the past.
* (D) Over the next year, Silverton is planning to create several large municipal projects, including two suspension bridges and a new football stadium, which will require large amounts of steel.
* (E
The vast majority of the steel mills that have closed because of competition with Gigante Gruppo and then re-opened are domestically-owned.
correct

ac E

budetta4 wrote:The industrial city of Silverton is going through a recession, and within a year, all small domestically-owned steel mills in the city are expected to go out of business permanently due to competition with Globo-Steel, a large domestically-owned steel mill that opened in a neighboring city last year. However, these mills will surely re-open shortly after they close; since the foreign-owned steel company Gigante Gruppo came to Silverton last year, every mill that has closed temporarily due to competition with Gigante Gruppo has re-opened, usually with the same ownership, within a month.

Which of the following, if true, is most likely to undermine the conclusion of this argument?

* (A)Several major clients of Gigante Gruppo have recently switched to Globo-Steel due to trade laws that give tax breaks to clients of domestic heavy industry.
*
(B) Many steel mills in Silverton create galvanized steel that doesn't rust, a popular variety of steel that is not sold by either Gigante Gruppo or Globo-Steel.
your answer
* (C) Silverton has more steel mills operational today than it has ever had in the past.
* (D) Over the next year, Silverton is planning to create several large municipal projects, including two suspension bridges and a new football stadium, which will require large amounts of steel.
* (E
The vast majority of the steel mills that have closed because of competition with Gigante Gruppo and then re-opened are domestically-owned.
correct

ac E

Conclusion is saying all small domestically-owned steel mills in the city are expected to close due to competition with Globo-Steel, a large domestically-owned steel mill and will reopen shortly. And the reason given to support this is ''the foreign-owned steel company Gigante Gruppo came to Silverton last year, every mill that has closed temporarily due to competition with Gigante Gruppo has re-opened, usually with the same ownership, within a month"

Look at the highlighted text
E clearly weeken the conclusion by saying that steel mills reopened were domestic companies(they were reopened because competition was with a foreign still mill Gigante Gruppo). But Globo steel is a domestic company, so the steel mills that will go out of business may not be in a position to repopen.

The industrial city of Silverton is going through a recession, and within a year, all small domestically-owned steel mills in the city are expected to go out of business permanently due to competition with Globo-Steel, a large domestically-owned steel mill that opened in a neighboring city last year. However, these mills will surely re-open shortly after they close; since the foreign-owned steel company Gigante Gruppo came to Silverton last year, every mill that has closed temporarily due to competition with Gigante Gruppo has re-opened, usually with the same ownership, within a month.

Case of Conclusion contradicting the Premise ? There is only one interpretation for Permanently going out of business. Also, you cannot permanently go out of business and retain same ownership.
Still , E is an option because of the assumption that domestic industries will not experience the disadvantages faced by the foreign owned business maybe due to tax factors etc. But without the assumption it is not a strong case for E.
Whereas C assumes nothing or less . If there are more firms now and that too in a recessionary market you will have more closures.
IMO C will all the flaws.

@kstv

Why is D wrong .

If you see D provides an alternate reason why the mills may reopen .

However I agree with you that E is not a good answer because of the phrase "usually with the same ownership" . That dose not mean always . And this goes against option E .

Also I dont understand how C effects the conclusion.

Can you please explain?

I smell a modified GMATPrep question!

As a GMAT instructor, I worry about badly modified GMATPrep questions. I am not a lawyer, so I am not qualified to speak about the legality of the practice of rewording official questions, but I worry about people practicing for the GMAT with such questions.

Here's an anecdote: I have done several GMAT verbal exams offered by two companies (neither Manhattan GMAT nor Kaplan nor 800score, I might add) and the scores I got were about the 60th percentile. I have done the GMAT 5 times, and my verbal scores were always a bit better than that. (50V, 48V, 50V, 50V, 51V).

Perhaps GMAC is wrong and my true verbal level is much lower than what the GMAT tells me (my English teachers at school would probably say as much), but B-schools tend to be interested in your GMAT scores, so practice first and foremost with official questions, which are tested exhaustively before they ever become official.

I understand the desire to do lots of practice tests to guage your progress, but make sure that the source is reliable; otherwise, you may be cheating yourself. It is VERY VERY hard to write good verbal questions. If you feel that official questions do not offer you enough practice, then resort to a company (e.g. Manhattan GMAT or Kaplan) that invests a lot of money in question development or use LSAT questions.

Substandard questions can:

undermine your confidence
encourage you to make unwarranted assumptions
lead you to accept convoluted or ambiguous wordings
make you waste time on concepts that are not tested (Indian CAT questions, for example)

I think it would be helpful if members posted the source of their questions. Perhaps this is actually an official question and I will have to eat this post. Here's the GMATPrep question that bears more than a passing resemblance to the one posted above:






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.

This is from OG 12 No 104 page 517
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.

OA B page 629

Thanks Kevin ,

For informing and saving our time . I seriously believe that a mandatory field should be included before posting a new thread asking for the question source .