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 five 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 five-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 first five years of operation?

between (B) and (C)...i would go with (C).

(B) incorrect b/c people do NOT have to do ALMOST ALL of their shopping in order for stores to go bankrupt.

(C) finding this reason may help b/c it may point to other reasons (if any) of why businesses go bankrupt in the typical five year span.

IMO B.
If the residents do not do all their shopping in the shops at Morgan ville,it wont make much difference if Save all opens the stores.
What is the OA with explanation?

Question is asking to find out something which helps the most in evaluating community activist's reasoning. And community activist's reasoning is based on the records of the other towns when SaveAll is opened there.

Now to counterattack the reasoning one need to consider during the same five year period what was happening to healthy central shopping districts in towns where SaveAll is not opened. And that will help in evaluating actual reason behind the bankruptcies, whether reason was opening of SaveAll or anything else.

So C is the most appropriate. Hope it clerifies..

One more reason that disqualifies B.

B tells us how many people buy from the central shopping, but doesn't tell for sure that these people will go to SaveAll shops when the are opened.

C talks exactly about the pattern of shops going bankrupt which might be a reason which happenedv when SaveAll was opened.

whats the OA?

Thanks

One more vote for answer C

Please post the OA. Thanks

I will go with B. Here is my reasoning...

It doesnt matter what other towns have experienced in the pas..what matters is the current scenario in Morganville and the shopping behavior of the residents. If the residents are going for shopping in the central shopping district then by opening SaveAll stores their sales may get impacted hence chance of bankruptcy but if they are not going to the central shopping district then the sales of central district will in any case not get impacted, if the central district stores are surviving now (w/o residents going to them) they will continue to survive even if the residents go to SaveAll...so the shopping behavior of the residents in most important..

OA please?

I would pick B.

If a large percentage of the population do not already do their shopping at the shopping centre then perhaps opening of SaveAll may not adveresly affect the shopping. So this question will be useful in evaluating the response.

The problem with C, in my opinion is, it tries to analyse bankruptcy immaterial of the cause (i.e. opening os SaveAll) which does not help the argument.

i would pick B