Consumer activist: By allowing major airlines to abandon, as they prom

D.

The argument is that the consumers became disadvantaged --- only the choice D demonstrates that the consumers were better off before the change in regulatory policy.

tough one..took me as well 3 mins to solve..I hate assumptions questions...
no regulation -> only $ routes
thus, the activist must assume that the airlines were forced to keep the non-profitable routes because of the regulation.
if such is not true, his argument falls apart.

A is irrelevant
B that's smth that can be inferred from his statement.
C almost here is the black sheep. moreover, how can it work, if in this case people are disadvantaged?
D if we negate this one, the argument is shattered. looks good.
E irrelevant, as he does not speak about regional airlines.

KAPLAN OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

The consumer activist claims that deregulation worked to the disadvantage of everyone without access to a major airport. Why? Because the removal of government regulations allowed major airlines to abandon unprofitable routes “as they promptly did.” That means, as (D) points out, that the regulations had been to some degree responsible for the fact that the airlines were maintaining their less profitable routes. Use the denial test; if the regulations weren’t partly responsible, then their removal wouldn’t have caused a wholesale abandonment of the unprofitable routes.

(A) The activist claims that deregulation created new disadvantages for those without access to major airports, but needn’t assume that before deregulation there were no disadvantages for those without such access.

(B) The activist needn’t assume anything about what should be done, since he never addresses that concern in his argument; moreover (B)’s claim about “any sizable group of consumers” is clearly too general in scope.

(C) is also too general; the activist says that in this case deregulation created disadvantages, but needn’t assume that regulation “almost always” is advantageous.

(E) The activist’s argument never mentioned “regional airlines” so you can be pretty sure he’s not assuming anything about them. Moreover, the argument doesn’t discuss “quality of service” but concentrates on access to service.

Even if you did not completely understand it, D is the best choice.

A,B,C,&E, do not provide any strength to the argument that the question is asking for.

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