The city's decision to move the baseball stadium from its pr

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The city's decision to move the baseball stadium from its present suburban location to the heart of downtown will have a number of beneficial effects. The presence of so many patrons of the park will make the streets safer and prove a boon to the many small businesses in the area. Downtown will, therefore, be a much more desirable place to be.

Which of the following is an assumption upon which the author bases her argument?
Sports arenas are better situated in urban centers than in suburban areas.
If moving a baseball stadium into downtown is beneficial, then the construction of a new football stadium would be beneficial as well.
The desirability of a locale depends, at least in part, on its relative security and the success of its businesses.
The fans of stadium sports spend more in local businesses than do those of musical or other large-scale entertainment events.
It was the presence of small businesses in the downtown area that attracted the stadium developers in the first place.


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by shenoydevika » Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:01 pm
Hello Varun, a small request - when u post the official answer, please mark it as a spoiler.

Ok so this is how I went through it...

The baseball stadium is being moved downtown. This has many benefits. The benefits are - 1)safer streets and 2)boost for local businesses. Therefore Downtown will become a desirable place to be. So the author is connecting the desirability of being downtown with 1) and 2) above.

We have to find the author's assumption among the answer choices
A - Doesn't tell us about the desirability of anything. It talks about sports arenas and their suitable locales.
B - It doesn't deal with the conclusion. The conclusion is Downtown will become desirable once the stadium is moved there. This answer choice talks about the benefit of building a new football stadium. Unnecessary.
C - This answer choice connects desirability to security of the place and success of its businesses. This is exactly what the author has assumed. CORRECT.
D - Again, unnecessary information. Downtown businesses improving is an effect of the stadium being shifted there. We needn't know about relative spending of sports fans to music fans.
E - Huh? No! This is not an assumption at all. This just adds another fact to what has been stated. Not needed.

Hope this helps.

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by Tommy Wallach » Wed Jan 23, 2013 10:13 pm
Great explanation here, Shenoy. Just for fun, I'll throw in a few more words on the answer choices and present the official breakdown of the core:

Conclusion: Desirability of downtown increases with stadium
Premise: Stadium makes streets safer and helps businesses

A) This is incorrect because even though there are benefits to downtown (urban area), we don't know what the benefits were when the arena was situated in the suburban area. Also, we don't know what's better for the arena itself.

B) This wouldn't even work for an inference question; just because the baseball stadium is good doesn't mean the football stadium would be. And this is definitely a bad answer choice for an assumption question.

D) What are we doing comparing this to other events? Totally irrelevant.

E) There's no way for us to know this, and the argument certainly doesn't require it. There are plenty of reasons they could have decided to move the stadium, such as foot traffic.
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