Critical Reasoning

Community activist: If Morganville wants to keep its
central shopping district healthy, it should prevent the
opening of a huge SaveAll discount department store
on the outskirts of Morganville. Records from other
small towns show that whenever SaveAll has opened a
store outside the central shopping district of a small
town, within fi ve years the town has experienced the
bankruptcies of more than a quarter of the stores in
the shopping district.
The answer to which of the following would be most
useful for evaluating the community activist's
reasoning?
(A) Have community activists in other towns
successfully campaigned against the opening of
a SaveAll store on the outskirts of their towns?
(B) Do a large percentage of the residents of
Morganville currently do almost all of their
shopping at stores in Morganville?
(C) In towns with healthy central shopping districts,
what proportion of the stores in those districts
suffer bankruptcy during a typical fi ve-year
period?
(D) What proportion of the employees at the SaveAll
store on the outskirts of Morganville will be
drawn from Morganville?
(E) Do newly opened SaveAll stores ever lose
money during their fi rst fi ve years of operation?



I have a very specific question.

OG rules out option B saying that the conclusion would be supported just as well-or as poorly-if this question were answered.
I did not understand the explanation.
Can some1 please elaborate this?

Is it D ?

To be honest, I chose B as my answer.

But after reading the OG's opinion, I pick D.

But would like to hear from people on why not B.

If answer to option B is NO- which means residents of Morganville do not do most of their shopping at Morganville, then the oepning of a new store wil have no effect on the towns shopping district.

If the other hand the answer is YES- then as said by the activist it will surely affect the shopping district.

But we are asked the which of the following would be most
useful for evaluating the community activist's reasoning.
the activist points out the bankrupcy in other districtsover a 5 year period to cite as a reason for saveall eating in to the shopping districts profit.
but we need to observe the bankruptcy pattern in a normal healthy shopping district, as in what if few stores are boud to go bankrupt irrespective of any new shopping opening up? it would show us a trend which needs to evaluated before coming to the activists conclusions.

czarczar wrote:Community activist: If Morganville wants to keep its
central shopping district healthy, it should prevent the
opening of a huge SaveAll discount department store
on the outskirts of Morganville. Records from other
small towns show that whenever SaveAll has opened a
store outside the central shopping district of a small
town, within fi ve years the town has experienced the
bankruptcies of more than a quarter of the stores in
the shopping district.
The answer to which of the following would be most
useful for evaluating the community activist's
reasoning?
(A) Have community activists in other towns
successfully campaigned against the opening of
a SaveAll store on the outskirts of their towns?
(B) Do a large percentage of the residents of
Morganville currently do almost all of their
shopping at stores in Morganville?
(C) In towns with healthy central shopping districts,
what proportion of the stores in those districts
suffer bankruptcy during a typical fi ve-year
period?
(D) What proportion of the employees at the SaveAll
store on the outskirts of Morganville will be
drawn from Morganville?
(E) Do newly opened SaveAll stores ever lose
money during their fi rst fi ve years of operation?



I have a very specific question.

OG rules out option B saying that the conclusion would be supported just as well-or as poorly-if this question were answered.
I did not understand the explanation.
Can some1 please elaborate this?

i dont know how to explain your doubt but I dont find option B anywhere closer to be the answer because we have nothing to do with option B in this case...........i would have gone for option D because i find it to be very close to being the answer............

What is the right answer to this question, I dont think "D" because D is talking about the proportion of employees & how that is linked to the banruptcy of stores at Morganville? Do they have to pay their employees more in order to retain them & that puts them out of business.. I think this is too much of inference.

"to result in an average decline of twelve percent for city driving and eight percent for highway driving."

BTW the OA is :C .

I got that but i thought even if the answer to question in option B is yes or no still it will be useful.
Maybe I was stretching it .

Thanks .

rohu27 wrote:If answer to option B is NO- which means residents of Morganville do not do most of their shopping at Morganville, then the oepning of a new store wil have no effect on the towns shopping district.

If the other hand the answer is YES- then as said by the activist it will surely affect the shopping district.

But we are asked the which of the following would be most
useful for evaluating the community activist's reasoning.
the activist points out the bankrupcy in other districtsover a 5 year period to cite as a reason for saveall eating in to the shopping districts profit.
but we need to observe the bankruptcy pattern in a normal healthy shopping district, as in what if few stores are boud to go bankrupt irrespective of any new shopping opening up? it would show us a trend which needs to evaluated before coming to the activists conclusions.

czarczar wrote:Community activist: If Morganville wants to keep its
central shopping district healthy, it should prevent the
opening of a huge SaveAll discount department store
on the outskirts of Morganville. Records from other
small towns show that whenever SaveAll has opened a
store outside the central shopping district of a small
town, within fi ve years the town has experienced the
bankruptcies of more than a quarter of the stores in
the shopping district.
The answer to which of the following would be most
useful for evaluating the community activist's
reasoning?
(A) Have community activists in other towns
successfully campaigned against the opening of
a SaveAll store on the outskirts of their towns?
(B) Do a large percentage of the residents of
Morganville currently do almost all of their
shopping at stores in Morganville?
(C) In towns with healthy central shopping districts,
what proportion of the stores in those districts
suffer bankruptcy during a typical fi ve-year
period?
(D) What proportion of the employees at the SaveAll
store on the outskirts of Morganville will be
drawn from Morganville?
(E) Do newly opened SaveAll stores ever lose
money during their fi rst fi ve years of operation?



I have a very specific question.

OG rules out option B saying that the conclusion would be supported just as well-or as poorly-if this question were answered.
I did not understand the explanation.
Can some1 please elaborate this?

The reasoning used here is that because of X , something happened elsewhere, X will lead to samething everywhere (in this case to a new city) . A couple of things going on here :

1. Author of the argument assumes that what is aplicable in one place is applicable to other place
2. The given cause is the only reason for the effect .

Question to be asked could be : what if something else caused the bankruptcy ? What if situation here is not same as in the given case ?

Answer choice C does the job by answering first question : "what if something else caused the bankruptcy " .

The original poster asked for the anser choice B : Do a large percentage of the residents of Morganville currently do almost all of their shopping at stores in Morganville? "

The local resident do shop or not, there is a group of shoppers already and that's why stores do survive there .

Detail : a large percentage of the residents of Morganville currently do almost all of their shopping ? YES ; well, new store will impact the existing stores.

a large percentage of the residents of Morganville currently do almost all of their shopping ? NO ; well, we still do need to understand that there should be other shoppers if not local ones. so it will be impacted.

helps ?

I viewed it like this.

Premise: When a SaveAll is opened, within five years the town has bankruptcies of more than ¼ of stores in their shopping districts.

Conclusion: Therefore, if Morganville wants to keep its central shopping district healthy, it should prevent the opening of a SaveAll


The conclusion makes a statement about the financial health of the district, but the premise does nothing to define what constitutes a healthy district in regards to bankruptcy rates. There is a concept shift between "25% & higher bankruptcy rates"/"financial health". The unstated assumption being made is along the lines of:

Assumed Premise: Healthy shopping districts don't have bankruptcy rates of more than 25%


To better evaluate the claim we need to know about the bankruptcy rates in healthy districts. Answer C .
If the answer to question C is that healthy districts have bankruptcy rates lower than 25%, then the the conclusion is strengthened. If they have bankruptcy rates higher than 25%, the conclusion is weakened. So the answer to question C will be useful in analyzing the argument.