Number of subway riders

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Number of subway riders

by sameerballani » Sat Jun 18, 2011 3:37 am
Last year, after the number of subway riders who had had their pockets picked at Central Station had risen to an all-time high, the transit authority erected signs in Central Station telling riders to beware of pickpockets. In the year since the signs have been erected, though, riders have had their pockets picked at Central Station at a per-capita rate nearly double that before the signs were erected.

Which of the following, if true, helps to explain the discrepancy pointed out in the passage?

A)Since Central Station's major renovation, during which the signs were erected, Central Station has become much more attractive to tourists from out of town.
B)Rising gas prices and a surging downtown job market have caused the daily number of riders at Central Station nearly to double within the past year.
C)Riders walking past the new signs tend to rummage through their pockets or feel through their clothes to verify the presence of their possessions.
D)The number of individuals convicted of petty theft or grand theft for picking pockets at Central Station has decreased within the past year.
E)Most of the pickpockets' victims were riding the subway during peak travel hours, when Central Station is especially crowded.

[spoiler]OA:Later[/spoiler]
Please help by discussing the reason of the elimination of every incorrect option.

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by bubbliiiiiiii » Sat Jun 18, 2011 3:48 am
A)Since Central Station's major renovation, during which the signs were erected, Central Station has become much more attractive to tourists from out of town.
This option says that basically the number of visitors, in form of tourists, has increased and thus, may be more number of cases of pick pocketing have happened. - Contender.
B)Rising gas prices and a surging downtown job market have caused the daily number of riders at Central Station nearly to double within the past year.
Similar as above and thus, I eliminate both A and B as two options give the same reasoning, they cannot be the correct answer.
C)Riders walking past the new signs tend to rummage through their pockets or feel through their clothes to verify the presence of their possessions.
Correct since this says that may be due to the signs erected reminds the tourists on station to notice their purse and thus, would bring to their knowledge that they have been pick pocketed.
D)The number of individuals convicted of petty theft or grand theft for picking pockets at Central Station has decreased within the past year.
Contradicts with the statement above.
E)Most of the pickpockets' victims were riding the subway during peak travel hours, when Central Station is especially crowded.
This talks about certain time whereas the passage does not discuss pick pocketing at any particular time.

Hope it helps.

IMO C
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by sameerballani » Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:02 am
bubbliiiiiiii wrote:
A)Since Central Station's major renovation, during which the signs were erected, Central Station has become much more attractive to tourists from out of town.
This option says that basically the number of visitors, in form of tourists, has increased and thus, may be more number of cases of pick pocketing have happened. - Contender.
B)Rising gas prices and a surging downtown job market have caused the daily number of riders at Central Station nearly to double within the past year.
Similar as above and thus, I eliminate both A and B as two options give the same reasoning, they cannot be the correct answer.

NICE WAY !!
C)Riders walking past the new signs tend to rummage through their pockets or feel through their clothes to verify the presence of their possessions.
Correct since this says that may be due to the signs erected reminds the tourists on station to notice their purse and thus, would bring to their knowledge that they have been pick pocketed.

By this you wanna say that it is quite possible that the pocket was picked before but was reported at the station where it was noticed. And thus we feel that frequency of pick pocketing has increased
Am i in sync with you?
D)The number of individuals convicted of petty theft or grand theft for picking pockets at Central Station has decreased within the past year.
Contradicts with the statement above.

Number of pick pocketers have decreased but we can have case where each of them has increase the number of pockets picked exponentially...
E)Most of the pickpockets' victims were riding the subway during peak travel hours, when Central Station is especially crowded.
This talks about certain time whereas the passage does not discuss pick pocketing at any particular time.
I eliminated it on the basis that no time/ridership change is mentioned hence we can assume that ridership at mentioned time was even high previously. I mean all conditions are same other than board, which was placed 1year before.

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by bubbliiiiiiii » Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:11 am
By this you wanna say that it is quite possible that the pocket was picked before but was reported at the station where it was noticed. And thus we feel that frequency of pick pocketing has increased
Am i in sync with you?
yes. :)
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by sameerballani » Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:22 am
bubbliiiiiiii wrote:
By this you wanna say that it is quite possible that the pocket was picked before but was reported at the station where it was noticed. And thus we feel that frequency of pick pocketing has increased
Am i in sync with you?
yes. :)
What about option D(the case i have mentioned)?

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by Frankenstein » Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:28 am
Hi,
I too picked C but for a different reason. Riders who tend to search through their pockets after seeing the new signs, create an impression in the mind of pickpockets that they are carrying something valuable. The riders who do not carry valuable items wouldn't check even after seeing the new signs. So, the pickpockets have eliminated some of the people who do not carry any valuable items. Hence, the efficiency of pickpockets increases.
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by sameerballani » Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:41 am
Frankenstein wrote:Hi,
I too picked C but for a different reason. Riders who tend to search through their pockets after seeing the new signs, create an impression in the mind of pickpockets that they are carrying something valuable. The riders who do not carry valuable items wouldn't check even after seeing the new signs. So, the pickpockets have eliminated some of the people who do not carry any valuable items. Hence, the efficiency of pickpockets increases.
Good one!!
This is the OA..

While solving i had the reasoning as mentioned above... Is there anything wrong in that?
What you feel about option D. Isn't this possible that the number of pick-pocketers have decreased but they they are picking more pockets than before, but for HOW? we need your explanation , which perhaps helps in solving the discrepancy and hence the OA.
BUT i am still confused esp between C & D.

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by Frankenstein » Sat Jun 18, 2011 5:27 am
D)The number of individuals convicted of petty theft or grand theft for picking pockets at Central Station has decreased within the past year.
Contradicts with the statement above.

Number of pick pocketers have decreased but we can have case where each of them has increase the number of pockets picked exponentially...
Hi,
The number of individuals convicted of thefts has decreased means the number of guys who were caught decreased. It doesn't necessarily mean that the actual number of pickpocket thieves really decreased.There could be even more thieves going unnoticed/uncaught. Hence, this can be considered irrelevant, IMO.
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by sourabh33 » Sat Jun 18, 2011 7:13 am
Although OA is C, IMO D is not at all irrelevant here.

Solving this question requires an assumption to be made for any of the available options.

Evaluating C, one has to assume that the very action of checking one's belonging instigates thieves and increases the incidence per-capita. On the contrary, one could also assume that this action could actually reduce -the original intention of the program- the incidence of pickpockets: after seeing the sign one could become more alert and therefore avert the possibility of getting pick pocketed.

While evaluating D, we can make an assumption that since the number of people getting convicted reduced, more thieves per capita were present and therefore more pickpocket per capita occurred. Although choice D is not the perfect option, it very well resolves the discrepancy with a supporting assumption, as is done by option C.

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by Geva@EconomistGMAT » Sun Jun 19, 2011 7:55 am
sameerballani wrote:Last year, after the number of subway riders who had had their pockets picked at Central Station had risen to an all-time high, the transit authority erected signs in Central Station telling riders to beware of pickpockets. In the year since the signs have been erected, though, riders have had their pockets picked at Central Station at a per-capita rate nearly double that before the signs were erected.

Which of the following, if true, helps to explain the discrepancy pointed out in the passage?

A)Since Central Station's major renovation, during which the signs were erected, Central Station has become much more attractive to tourists from out of town.
B)Rising gas prices and a surging downtown job market have caused the daily number of riders at Central Station nearly to double within the past year.
C)Riders walking past the new signs tend to rummage through their pockets or feel through their clothes to verify the presence of their possessions.
D)The number of individuals convicted of petty theft or grand theft for picking pockets at Central Station has decreased within the past year.
E)Most of the pickpockets' victims were riding the subway during peak travel hours, when Central Station is especially crowded.

[spoiler]OA:Later[/spoiler]
Please help by discussing the reason of the elimination of every incorrect option.
Not a very good question, IMHO. It's trying to play on the "reported number is not the same as real number" issue - i.e. if there are more reports of a certain disease, it means either that there are more cases, or that there is the same actual number of cases, just increased awareness/better diagnostics leading to more reports of cases not earlier reported. We've seen this pattern in GMAT questions before, but here it's not so clear cut - the argument discusses actual cases of pickpocketing, not "reports of pickpockets in the station". If the argument had used "reports", then C would be THE best answer choice. As is, it's up for grabs, with points in favor of D (if they've caught fewer people, it could mean that there's more on the loose) or even A or B.
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by lunarpower » Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:52 am
Geva@MasterGMAT wrote: Not a very good question, IMHO. It's trying to play on the "reported number is not the same as real number" issue
nope.

i think you may be reading a little bit too much into this question, and/or hypothesizing interpretations that are not the most likely ones for the statements at hand.
bear in mind how discrepancy problems work: you just have to ascertain exactly which discrepancy you're supposed to explain, and then pick the answer choice that most directly leads to the apparently contradictory effect.

in this case, the weird contradiction that you have to explain is this:
-- signs were erected warning tourists about pickpocketing
BUT
-- pickpocketing actually increased.

therefore, you just have to find some consideration that reasonably explains why the warning signs would actually facilitate pickpocketing.
choice (c) explains this quite well -- if tourists are rummaging through their pockets, then pickpockets can simply watch them and know exactly where their valuables are kept, therefore making the pickpockets' job much, much easier.

this problem has nothing to do with "actual versus reported cases", as that distinction is not mentioned anywhere in the passage.
Last edited by lunarpower on Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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by LIL » Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:03 am
bubbliiiiiii wrote:Correct since this says that may be due to the signs erected reminds the tourists on station to notice their purse and thus, would bring to their knowledge that they have been pick pocketed.
correct answer, incorrect reasoning.
Frankenstein wrote:I too picked C but for a different reason. Riders who tend to search through their pockets after seeing the new signs, create an impression in the mind of pickpockets that they are carrying something valuable. The riders who do not carry valuable items wouldn't check even after seeing the new signs. So, the pickpockets have eliminated some of the people who do not carry any valuable items. Hence, the efficiency of pickpockets increases.
correct answer and correct reasoning. also, riders who rummage through their pockets are showing pickpocketers where they keep their valuable objects.
Geva@MasterGMAT wrote:It's trying to play on the "reported number is not the same as real number" issue - i.e. if there are more reports of a certain disease, it means either that there are more cases, or that there is the same actual number of cases, just increased awareness/better diagnostics leading to more reports of cases not earlier reported.
i don't think this is true. this only works if you're using bubbliiiii's reasoning. (i.e. that the purpose of answer c is to show that more people are *discovering* they've been pickpocketed after seeing the signs.)

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by sameerballani » Fri Jul 01, 2011 6:52 pm
Hi Ron,

Nice explanation !! Thanks
Also, can you help by explaining why other options(esp. D) are wrong.

Thanks
lunarpower wrote:
Geva@MasterGMAT wrote: Not a very good question, IMHO. It's trying to play on the "reported number is not the same as real number" issue
nope.

i think you may be reading a little bit too much into this question, and/or hypothesizing interpretations that are not the most likely ones for the statements at hand.
bear in mind how discrepancy problems work: you just have to ascertain exactly which discrepancy you're supposed to explain, and then pick the answer choice that most directly leads to the apparently contradictory effect.

in this case, the weird contradiction that you have to explain is this:
-- signs were erected warning tourists about pickpocketing
BUT
-- pickpocketing actually increased.

therefore, you just have to find some consideration that reasonably explains why the warning signs would actually facilitate pickpocketing.
choice (c) explains this quite well -- if tourists are rummaging through their pockets, then pickpockets can simply watch them and know exactly where their valuables are kept, therefore making the pickpockets' job much, much easier.

this problem has nothing to do with "actual versus reported cases", as that distinction is not mentioned anywhere in the passage.

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by trangle.nh » Sat Jul 02, 2011 1:30 am
lunarpower wrote:
Geva@MasterGMAT wrote: Not a very good question, IMHO. It's trying to play on the "reported number is not the same as real number" issue
nope.

i think you may be reading a little bit too much into this question, and/or hypothesizing interpretations that are not the most likely ones for the statements at hand.
bear in mind how discrepancy problems work: you just have to ascertain exactly which discrepancy you're supposed to explain, and then pick the answer choice that most directly leads to the apparently contradictory effect.

in this case, the weird contradiction that you have to explain is this:
-- signs were erected warning tourists about pickpocketing
BUT
-- pickpocketing actually increased.

therefore, you just have to find some consideration that reasonably explains why the warning signs would actually facilitate pickpocketing.
choice (c) explains this quite well -- if tourists are rummaging through their pockets, then pickpockets can simply watch them and know exactly where their valuables are kept, therefore making the pickpockets' job much, much easier.

this problem has nothing to do with "actual versus reported cases", as that distinction is not mentioned anywhere in the passage.
If the customer "feel through their clothes to verify the presence" of their property, how can a thief know this action?

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by trangle.nh » Sat Jul 02, 2011 1:39 am
Ans: C)Riders walking past the new signs tend to rummage through their pockets or feel through their clothes to verify the presence of their possessions.

This action can lead to 2 opposite effects:

1>Since the riders are more beware of keeping their possessions, thieves may have more difficulties in pickpocketing.

2>The second effect is that this may facilitate thieves in determining the riders possessing of valuable things