Critical Reasoning

Which of the following, if true, most logically completes the passage?
A recent poll found that over 80 percent of the residents of Nalmed Province favored a massive expansion of the commuter rail system as a means of significantly easing congestion on the province's highways and were willing to help pay for the expansion through an increase in their taxes. Nevertheless, the poll results indicate that expansion of the rail system, if successfully completed, would be unlikely to achieve its goal of easing congestion, because _______.

A. most people in favor of expanding the rail system reported less congestion during their highway commute as the primary benefit they would experience
B. of the less than 20 percent of residents not counted as favoring the expansion, about half claimed to have no opinion one way or the other
C. the twice-daily periods of peak congestion caused by people commuting in cars have grown from about an hour each to almost two and a half hours each in the past 20 years
D. expanding the commuter rail system will require the construction of dozens of miles of new railbed
E. the proposed expansion to the commuter rail system will make it possible for some people who both live and work at suburban locations to commute by rail

[spoiler]OA: Will be posted later. Please justify your answer[/spoiler]

we are basically asked to weaken the arguement here. Generally complete the passage questions are inference or assumption questions :

A. most people in favor of expanding the rail system reported less congestion during their highway commute as the primary benefit they would experience
irrelevant

B. of the less than 20 percent of residents not counted as favoring the expansion, about half claimed to have no opinion one way or the other
the opinion of the half of the non favouring public is not required here

C. the twice-daily periods of peak congestion caused by people commuting in cars have grown from about an hour each to almost two and a half hours each in the past 20 years
yes, this proves that the expansion will still not alleviate congestion

D. expanding the commuter rail system will require the construction of dozens of miles of new railbed
oki so what, we have several railbeds with us

E. the proposed expansion to the commuter rail system will make it possible for some people who both live and work at suburban locations to commute by rail
big deal !!

i think it is C.

IMO : C

Hi Guys,

I also went with option C but the OA given is A .........I have found one link https://www.beatthegmat.com/a-tough-cr-p ... 38155.html, may be it can be helpful to you all..........after going through the question again I realised why C is wrong

because if you see the main premise then you will realise that no where it's mentioned that rail network is being built since past 20 years but in option C it is said for the past 20 years the peak hour congestion time has increased. If premise statements would have mentioned that rail network is being built since past 20 years then I feel option C would have been correct

My answer is A

80% of the people are in favor of rail system expansion and will to pay for the expansion. We have to find a reason that makes the railsystem expansion less likely to achieve the goal of easing congestion.

What if most of the people who voted for expansion are hoping that others would use the railways, there by easing congestion of the roads. This is what exactly A tells. Most of the people wants to keep using the roads. So even expanding railways is not going to ease congestion.

C) The railways expansion might reduce the current peak congestion. There is no reason to believe it won't

Can we have an expert shed some light on this problem?

I would say that Newton9 is your expert here...

The above explanation is right on.

I was thinking as I was reading that one reason to want the train to be popular is so that other people are on it!!!

So Choice A does that...

You can treat this as a strengthen question. You can tell that you are looking for a premise since you have the "because" just before the blank. So the answer choice basically begins with "because" and so it is a premise.

So you want to strengthen the idea that "expansion of the rail system, if successfully completed, would be unlikely to achieve its goal of easing congestion." Now we need to make the poll point out that the train will not work when it seems it will. A does that.

David@VeritasPrep wrote:I would say that Newton9 is your expert here...

The above explanation is right on.

I was thinking as I was reading that one reason to want the train to be popular is so that other people are on it!!!

So Choice A does that...

You can treat this as a strengthen question. You can tell that you are looking for a premise since you have the "because" just before the blank. So the answer choice basically begins with "because" and so it is a premise.

So you want to strengthen the idea that "expansion of the rail system, if successfully completed, would be unlikely to achieve its goal of easing congestion." Now we need to make the poll point out that the train will not work when it seems it will. A does that.

Hi David,

Thanks a lot for your response. Is my explanation below for rejecting C correct?

"because if you see the main premise then you will realise that no where it's mentioned that rail network is being built since past 20 years but in option C it is said for the past 20 years the peak hour congestion time has increased. If premise statements would have mentioned that rail network is being built since past 20 years then I feel option C would have been correct"

I thought its C as well initially...Nicely Explained Mr.Knewton ..Thanks..Thats why Critical reasoning needs you to think so critically..

i have to say this was a little too tough for me. who makes such questions ?

whats the source aspirant ?

bblast wrote:i have to say this was a little too tough for me. who makes such questions ?

whats the source aspirant ?

I think it's Manhattan GMAT Problem........