Because city council members in small towns are intimately acquainted with the public they serve, they clearly have a more difficult job than city council members in larger cities.

The conclusion above rests on which of the following assumptions?

Working directly with members of the public is the one of the most challenging aspects of serving on a city council.
Managing the affairs of a large city requires a more significant time commitment than working directly with the public.
City council members in small towns are often related to a certain percentage of the population, making them intimately acquainted with the people they serve.
Residents of small towns often attend city council meetings to present their concerns.
City council members in large cities rarely engage the public directly.


Consider Kudos, If my post helps!!!!

Archit

My take is E.
A) Contender
B) Out of scope... time commitment is not talked about.
C) out of scope. ... reason for acquaintance is not relevant
D) out of scope.. no comparative information given about meetings
E) Contender

Between A and E,
A)
Working directly with members of the public is the one of the most challenging aspects of serving on a city council
however it could be the same for large cities as well as it may be for small cities. Option E eliminates this possibility and says
City council members in large cities rarely engage the public directly.
Thus E wins

KUDOS if u like

BTW great great one !!! I'm still considering option E as well

Thanks Archit143 !

+1 for u
_________________

KUDOS is the good manner to help the entire community.

I agree Sir
Cause : city council members in small towns are intimately acquainted with the public they serve

Effect: they ( small city council members) clearly have a more difficult job than city council members in larger cities.

Between :
A- Working directly with members of the public is the one of the most challenging aspects of serving on a city council.

and

E- City council members in large cities rarely engage the public directly.

My take is E:
why? because the argument needs E to be valid. if somehow city council members in large cities do usually engage the public directly then they would be intimately acquainted with the public they serve as small city council do. Then, the effect falls apart right ?! So it is the correct answer while option A cannot be assumed since the argument didn't tell anything about whether city council members in large cities work directly with memebrs of the public or Not.
_________________

KUDOS is the good manner to help the entire community.

I fully agree with u!!!! E is extension of the premise and hence the assumption It is necessary if you then check that to satisfy the criteria for it to be a assumption.

Kudos , if u like.

Sagar, E goes on to prove that yes, city council members have less interaction with public, but why we need that?? the only thing we need is less/more interaction the factor deciding difficulty? A says yes it is the deciding factor

Regards,

Abhijit
_________________

Please Read this before Posting your question rules-for-posting-in-verbal-gmat-forum-134642.html#p1097623

When it rains, All birds occupy shelters. But Eagle is the only bird that avoids the rain by flying above the clouds.
Problems common to all. Attitude makes the difference

Concept Initiator Articles
co-ordinate-geometry-simplified-149570.html
time-speed-and-distance-simplified-150163.html
permutations-and-combinations-simplified-150835.html
NEW!!UPCOMING in Simplification Series - INEQUATIONS (Inequalities).

I don't really care for the question, because the conclusion does not require us to specifically assume any of the five answer choices. We learn that small town council members work with the public. The conclusion is that they have a more difficult job than big city council members. There's a huge gap in that argument. The conclusion only follows if we know that it is difficult to work with the public. So A is the only answer which bridges that gap.

But we do not need to assume specifically that working with the public is "one of the most challenging" parts of a council member's job, which is why I don't care much for answer A. If small-town and big-city council members had exactly the same jobs with the one exception that small-town council members had an additional challenge - they need to work with the public - then small-town council members would have more difficult jobs than big-city members, even if working with the public was not one of the most challenging parts of their jobs. So as A is worded, it's not an assumption required for the argument.

edit - rereading the question, we also need to assume something like what E says. The question never mentions what interaction big-city council members have with the public. The argument only makes any sense if we assume they have less interaction than do small-town council members. The wording is so imprecise though that it's hard to tell what any of it means; being " intimately acquainted" with the public does not mean the same thing as "engage the public directly".

So the argument requires two assumptions, and there are two answers which are imperfect but are reasonably close to what we need. I don't think the language of the question is precise enough to let us distinguish between those two choices.
_________________

Nov 2011: After years of development, I am now making my advanced Quant books and high-level problem sets available for sale. Contact me at ianstewartgmat at gmail.com for details.

Private GMAT Tutor based in Toronto

In the meantime, i have posted OA......

Because city council members in small towns are intimately acquainted with the public they serve, they clearly have a more difficult job than city council members in larger cities.

The conclusion above rests on which of the following assumptions?
Working directly with members of the public is the one of the most challenging aspects of serving on a city council.
Managing the affairs of a large city requires a more significant time commitment than working directly with the public.
City council members in small towns are often related to a certain percentage of the population, making them intimately acquainted with the people they serve.
Residents of small towns often attend city council meetings to present their concerns.
City council members in large cities rarely engage the public directly.


what should be the answer to the above question and how to approach this ?

OA after some discussion

I picked A.option a fulfills the gap.......