Critical Reasoning

LulaBrazilia wrote:Mall owner: Our mall's occupancy rate is so low that we are barely making a profit. We cannot raise rents because of an unacceptably high risk of losing established tenants. On the other hand, a mall that is fully occupied costs about as much to run as one in which a rental space here and a rental space there stands empty. Clearly, therefore, to increase profits we must sign up new tenants.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

(A) The mall's operating costs could be cut by consolidating currently rented spaces in such a way that an entire wing of the mall could be closed up.

(B) The mall is located in a geographic area in which costs incurred for air-conditioning in the hot summers exceed those incurred for heating in the mild winters by a wide margin.

(C) The mall's occupancy rate, though relatively low, has been relatively stable for several years.

(D) The mall lost tenants as a result of each of the two major rent increases that have occurred there.

(E) None of the mall's established tenants is likely to need additional floor space there in the foreseeable future.

Hi Lula!

Anyone who wants to be a top scorer on the GMAT needs to learn to recognize common patterns. This argument exemplifies one such pattern in critical reasoning.

It's common for authors to identify a problem and then propose a solution. It's also common for authors to go one step further and claim that their solution is the ONLY one that will work.

Whenever an author claims that her solution is the only one, she's assuming that there are no other possible fixes. To weaken such an argument, we look for an ALTERNATIVE solution.

How do we know that this author is making that exact claim? Because she says that, to increase profits, we MUST sign up new tenants. The "must" in an indication that nothing else will work.

Now we just need to find the choice that suggests an alternative:

a) is this another way to increase profits? YES! You can increase profit by increasing your margin and cutting costs is certainly one way to do so (the GMAT doesn't expect you to know much about the real world, but "profit=revenue-costs" is certainly on the short list). Since (a) offers an alternative to the mall owner's plan, it weakens the argument.

Choose (a)!

On test day, we'd stop right here. Once you take the time to make a prediction, you need to leverage that work to save as much time as possible on the choices. However, let's go into "review mode" and look at the remaining answers. When you're reviewing your work, take the time to learn about the common traps.

(b) nothing about increasing profits - out of scope
(c) reinforces the evidence, but doesn't speak to whether the author's plan is the only one that will work - out of scope
(d) reinforces the author's claim that raising rents is not an alternative - but we already knew that, so doesn't do anything
(e) removes an alternative solution (rent more space to existing tenants) - a common way to STRENGTHEN a "my way is the only way" argument

* * *

Here's your big takeaway: don't treat each CR question as unique. Look for the recurring patterns so that, on test day, you can make quick and accurate predictions.

Stuart