Passenger boardings on busses almost doubled between 1995 and 2005, ye

First of all, thanks BeckyRobinsonTPR for a question.

This question is just difficult for those who don't understand the terms provided in the stimulus. But, that's not a logic of GMAC who focus on the logic (even when you don't understand what do terms mean). If you read the question more than 1 time, I bet you can see the pattern quite clearly.

ANALYZE THE STIMULUS:

Fact: Boarding passes doubled between 1995 to 2005
Fact: But, number of trips only increased 38%
Fact: The reason for that is: boarding pass is counted each time for each connection to the final destination.
Question: explain why the increase in boardings exceeded the increase in the number of trips.

You can see the answer actually lies on the stimulus. Because boarding pass is counted each time for each connection to the final destination. It doesn't matter how much proportion of bus trips requiring passengers to make a connection en route, the boarding pass counts must increase at least 38% because of new boarding pass counting system (actually mentioned in the stimulus). Even a small increase of the proportion of bus trips requiring passengers to make a connection ==> will make the number of boarding passes increase.

==> You just need to pick an option that talks about "increase of connection to final destination".

ANALYZE EACH ANSWER:

A) Between 1995 and 2005, the number of bus stops increased dramatically.
Wrong. "Number of bus tops" differs from "number of connections"

B) Between 1995 and 2005, the total distance of the average bus trip increased significantly.
Wrong. Out of scope. "total distance" is not relevant to "increase of number of boarding passes"

C) Between 1995 and 2005, the proportion of bus trips requiring passengers to make a connection en route to their final destinations increased significantly.
Correct. As mentioned above, the boarding pass counts must increase at least 38% because of new boarding pass counting system (actually mentioned in the stimulus). Even the small increase of the proportion of bus trips requiring passengers to make a connection ==> will make the number of boarding passes increase.

D) The proportion of business travelers using busses increased significantly between 1995 and 2005 relative to the proportion of pleasure travelers.
Wrong. Out of scope. Nothing about the proportion of "business travelers" vs "pleasure travelers".

E) The average seating capacity of busses increased significantly between 1995 and 2005.
Wrong. Out of scope. "seating capacity" does not help to explain why number of boarding passes increased more than that of bus trip.

Hope it's clear.

Official Explanation:
This is a resolve/explain type question which asks you to resolve a conflict in the information given in the paragraph. Thus, the first step is to identify the conflict. In this case the paragraph states that the number of bus boardings have increased by 50% at the same time the number of trips has only increased by 38%. Therefore a correct answer would be one that explains the difference in the number of boardings versus the number of trips. The question gives a hint that a new boarding is counted at each connection, but not a new trip, therefore your answer will probably deal with the issue of connections.

A) The number of bus stops does not affect the number of boardings, or the number of connections a passenger must make in order to arrive at their destination.
B) If the distance of the average trip increased then it could be true that people are making more connections than they used to, but this does not necessarily have to be the case.
C) Is the correct answer because it clearly states that customers are having to make more connections, and if each connection is counted as a separate boarding then that would explain why the number of boardings increased more than the number of trips.
D) The distinction between business and pleasure travelers is irrelevant in this case.
E) The increase in seating capacity does not affect the number of connections each passenger has to make to reach their destination, therefore this is not relevant.

Hi,

Can you please explain the meaning of connections ?

Connections mean the number of times the person has to change the bus to reach the destination.

Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!

Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).

Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email.