Critical Reasoning

Recently in City X, developers have stopped buying land, contractors have found themselves going without work for longer periods, and banks have issued fewer mortgages. There must be fewer new residents moving to City X than there were previously.

Which of the following indicates a flaw in the reasoning above?

A This year several housing blocks have gone on the market after being held up for months by legal red tape.
B The average size of a new home has increased significantly over the past several years.
C Re-sales of condominiums have increased over the past six months.
D The cost of materials such as lumber and cement has decreased over the past year.
E Sales of other big-ticket items, such as automobiles and boats, has remained steady over the past year.

OA to follow....i somehow found the OE weird....

IMO A

I shall post my explanation if I am right.

The conclusion of the argument is that fewer new residents move to city X based on 3 premises.
1. contractors stop buying land
2. no work to do
3. fewer mortage

The conclusion is based on these 3 premises.

In other words, 3 premises causes the conclusion and the author assumes that there are no other possibilities to explain this situation. But, we need to weaken the argument so there must be other alternate possibility that we can find. Namely, while these(3 premises) may be true, it is also possible that there are other causes. (Remember, weaken-the-argument question is really asking you to find a hole(missing link) in the argument.)

Let's find an alternative. That's what (A) says. Not because of 3 premises, but because of "unsold houses" or "avaiable houses" on the market.

(B)"size" of the house? it's out of the scope.
(C)(D) and (E) are irrelevant.

Therefore, the answer is (A) for sure.

Hope this helps.

thnxx oa is a....i think i got too critical...the key to successfully beat the CR ques is not to get too critical......was stuck between a and c

well said HitmewithGMAT...


Yeah one way of weakening the conclusion is to find a alternate cause for which the event has occured.

A states that alternate cause and does weakens the assumption and thereby the conclusion!

I like the explanation on A