A moderately large city is redesigning its central downtown area and

It's very tricky, I picked D but I dont think it should be C, here's why: the goal of this plan is not to make businesses "thrive" but to attract people, and this is exactly what D says, if the plan is implemented, then it's more likely that more people will come, thus strengthening the conclusion, whereas C said that similar plans have resulted in more profits for business.

IMO poor written question, maybe I'm wrong but even though C strengthen, D does the job better

would be hard to say if this is a 700+ level gmat question. The more crux is that the option C and D have relevance but C comes out more easy because it gives a hypothesis of similar conditions to be have worked for them just like the intended place which we are seeing.

The question wants us to find the info that will lead us to achieve the plan's goal. The big take away from the plan is to reduce vehicle traffic and increase bicycle/pedestrian in order to increase workers/shoppers for businesses.

A, B, and E are out of scope since the focus of those options isn't part of the plan goal.

D could be part of the plan to reach the goal, but it's not the goal.

C addresses the intent of the plan, which is to "attract more workers and shoppers to downtown businesses". Correct!

I would like to give my view point on why option D is wrong (chosen by most people).

(D) If the proposed lane restrictions on drivers are rigorously enforced, more people will likely be attracted to downtown businesses than would otherwise be.

Look at the modifier for people, it says more people but it doesn't say anything about workers in particular. e.g more customers are attracted to do shopping

Hi Anirudh16.

In GMAT CR, we can, and even must, use common-sense thinking in analyzing the arguments and answer choices.

In this case, common sense tells us that the people "attracted to downtown businesses" mentioned by choice (D) are "workers and shoppers." So, we wouldn't eliminate choice (D) just because it doesn't specifically say "workers and shoppers."

Gmat Ninja daagh please explain why option C is preferred over option D

Subtleties in the language! Others have noted that (D) is referring specifically to the scenario in which the lane restrictions are "rigorously enforced," and the plan is simply calling for reducing the number of lanes for cars. We have no idea how rigorously these restrictions will actually be enforced. That's one problem.

Worse, (D) just says "more people" will be attracted to downtown business. That's pretty vague, isn't it? What if, say, two more people are attracted to these businesses after the changes are made? Hard to imagine that's going to make an enormous impact on the health of these businesses, right?

Contrast that with (C), in which this same plan in other cities has caused downtown businesses "to thrive." That's far more compelling language and a concrete example of the plan actually working, as opposed to (D), which gives us a vague, hypothetical scenario in which businesses may not even be any better off. So (C) is better.

I hope that helps!

Hi experts avigutman IanStewart MartyTargetTestPrep zhanbo

I picked up this CR question in Marty's three-hour YouTube webinar. Though Marty has revised the option (D) for the webinar since he does not fully like the original option (D), I hope to discuss the original option (D) because I was surprised that it is not the correct answer.

I've checked all the previous posts. Although some explanations are offered by the experts whom I highly respect, I still have remaining doubts and follow-up questions. Hope you could share some thoughts when you have time. Thank you!



Three factors have been pointed out in previous posts to eliminate (D)--the use of "IF" (conditional tone), the use of "more" and the phrasing "would otherwise be." I do not think that the first two factors are responsible for why (D) is incorrect, but I see the third factor have some effects, and I hope to check the third factor.

This CR questions is a "plan-type" question. In my opinion, when we deal with an argument centered around a plan, we should at least take for granted that the plan will be executed/enforced/implemented to some degree. An easy CR question may offer us an option that the plan will not be enforced or will be badly enforced because of some reasons, and we can use this option to weaken the prediction that the plan will achieve its goal. But harder CR questions do not give us such clear options.

Hence, my task is to find a piece of information showing that the plan, when forced, can achieve its goals. The option (D) tells me that if the plan is rigorously enforced, more people will likely be attracted to downtown businesses than would otherwise be.

Some experts debate whether the use of "IF" is an issue, and I tend to think that it is not an issue. Some CR questions' correct options also use the "IF" structure, and in my opinion, it is just one of many structures for test designers to write the options.

What (D) says matches my common sense--the better a plan is executed, the better the results. (Sometimes, a plan may have its side effects that are so strong that the positive effects are offset and the plan cannot achieve its goals. But this issue does not matter since we are not given any information of side effects.) But I see that some experts and members have debated the meaning of "more" and "than would otherwise be."

The original argument has a comparison--more people will be attracted to downtown businesses after the plan is enforced than before the plan is enforced--and the option (D) has a comparison too--more people will be attracted to downtown business when the plan is strictly enforced than would otherwise be.

Several experts say that the use of "more" in option (D) is vague, because if just few more visitors are attracted to the businesses, the additional few visitors won't likely lead to thriving businesses. But I do not think that the use of "more" is an issue, because according to the argument, the exact intent of the plan is to attract more people, not to make the businesses "thriving."

Yes it can be inferred that the city's final goal is to improve downtown business, but the exact goal at question is whether the plan can attract more people. The argument does not qualify how much more visitors the plan is expected to attract. So even if just two more visitors are attracted after the plan is executed, the plan should still be considered effective.

But I think that the phrasing "would otherwise be" is the source of mystery. This phrasing might be the main reason why the (D) is incorrect. An expert has elaborated this phrasing, but I hope to check his conclusion.



I appreciate this breakdown "I" and "II," but does not the option (D), with the phrasing "otherwise," refer to all the situations except for the situation in which the plan is enforced strictly? I tend to view "otherwise" as one of the "logical opposite" indicators-- "black" vs "not black," instead of "white"--is not it? To me, the option (D) means that more people will be likely attracted to downtown businesses when the plan is strictly enforced than when there is no plan (a) or when the plan is not strictly enforced (b).

For the (a) case, I think (D) is a contender, since it offers some information that the plan will achieve its goals, if the plan is strictly enforced. Yes we do not know whether the city will enforce the plan strictly, but we are just looking for a strengthener, not a proof that the plan will definitely achieve its goal since we are sure that the plan will be executed strictly. So I think it will work.

For the (b) case, I am unsure. If the plan works better when it is strictly enforced than when it is not strictly enforced, cannot we infer that the plan has some positive effects when it is not strictly enforced? In this case, (D) will strengthen the prediction. Or, we should not eliminate the possibility that the plan will have no effect when it is not strictly enforced? In this case, (D) will not strengthen the prediction.


The following are some posts about why (D) are incorrect.
I cite them out for my personal notes.



I think when we deal with "plan-type" CR questions, we discuss the implementation too. Technically, a plan without execution will never achieve its goal, however clever the plan is.

Hi, GraceSCKao,

I expressed my frustration about this question over three years ago. Many kudos that post received demonstrated the similar sentiment among fellow test takers.

Yet, over the past three years, my attitude toward this question gradually changed. I can now eliminate option (D) with confidence. Here it goes.

"If the proposed lane restrictions on drivers are rigorously enforced, more people will likely be attracted to downtown businesses than would otherwise be."
Let's say, If the proposed lane restrictions on drivers are rigorously enforced, 200 people will be attracted to downtown businesses.
Otherwise, only 100 people will be attracted to downtown business. Fair enough?

But we do not know how many people are visiting downtown business now! It might be any number from 50, 150, 250, to 500+.

Since the goal of the plan is to increase visitors to downtown business, simply knowing (D) is essentially irrelevant. True, If the proposed lane restrictions on drivers are rigorously enforced, more people will likely be attracted to downtown businesses than would otherwise be. But, even with the rigorous enforcement, the number of visitors may still be lower than current level. (Or it may be higher. Thus irrelevant.)

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Grace, you are such a good writer; your AWA will absolutely be 6.

I can understand why people may like (D). It's a nice statement. One thing to consider, however, is that IF doesn't GUARANTEE something. "If this person works hard and becomes rich, people could trust him when it comes to money." --- > Does this mean I can trust him now when it comes to money?

(D) If the proposed lane restrictions on drivers are rigorously enforced, more people will likely be attracted to downtown businesses than would otherwise be.

Answer choice (C), however, tells you something DEFINITE. It's a fact.

(C) In other moderately sized cities where measures were taken to make downtowns more accessible for walkers and cyclists, downtown businesses began to thrive.

Hello, GraceSCKao. I know your query was not directed at me, but since I was mentioned in a way, I feel the need to clarify my earlier position. As with many other issues in SC and CR alike, you want to contextualize the information you encounter. It is not as though I saw if in answer choice (D) and went, Zap! Gone! For example, I could see a correct answer starting with, If implemented, the plan... The problem with the if in answer choice (D) is that the rest of that conditional operates under an extreme condition: if... rigorously enforced. In fact, it is this overall frame that allows for the interpretation that only if there is rigorous enforcement will more people be attracted to downtown businesses. Perhaps you can better appreciate the point that I and others have drawn attention to regarding this problematic if.

Furthermore, we cannot look at more in a vacuum and call it a second factor for elimination. Again, I did not look at more people and immediately write off the answer choice. Rather, I considered the contents of the second half of the conditional statement together: more people will likely be attracted to downtown businesses than would otherwise be. I will avoid recapitulating my earlier thoughts on the matter. I would like to simply endorse the points that zhanbo brought up in his recent response.

I know it may be hard, as a non-native English speaker, to appreciate a holistic approach to interpreting these often complex sentences that appear in more challenging questions. Yet my advice to you remains consistent with what I have urged you to do in other posts: do not zoom in so close that you have no idea about the nature of the larger organism you are looking at.

As always, good luck with your studies.

- Andrew

Hi AnishPassi,

I tried today to go through your edited post, but I couldn't make it past the first set of assertions. I couldn't find "Pretty much all posts" that "have taken the option to mean the second interpretation". Could you identify the posts before yours that you are referring to?

GraceSCKao

Here is the thing about the distinction made for 'otherwise' - you cannot distinguish between the cases I and II.

What does this mean - "If you run this campaign, you will get more customers than otherwise"
It simply means that if you run this campaign, you will get more customers than if you do not run the campaign. That is all.

"If rigorously enforced, more people will be attracted than otherwise"
means that if it is rigorously enforced, more people will be attracted than if it is NOT rigorously enforced.
In the case of "NOT rigorously enforced", we are talking about the case of "implemented and not rigorously imposed" as well as "not implemented."
Option (D) doesn't distinguish between the two and neither can we.

Since "rigorously enforced" is a higher degree of restriction (use of the word 'rigorous' implies 'more than normal') which we do not know whether the city will do or not, it doesn't help increase the likelihood of our plan.

Take a simpler case:

K: To separate the components of this mixture, let's heat it.

What will increase the likelihood of my plan?

(A) Others who heated the mixture were able to separate the components.
or
(B) If you heat it to 500 degree celsius, the components are more likely to separate than otherwise.

Which of the two helps my plan?
Option (B) makes a case for heating above 500 degrees vs not heating to above 500 degrees. But 500 degrees is not a part of my plan. I don't know whether I will heat it to 500 degree celsius. My plan only talks about heating. So will it help? Can't really say.
But (A) does give me a better chance that it may succeed.

Also, as I said in my response of three years back, there is something for us to learn in this question since it is an official question.

GraceSCKao I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm curious to see whether folks will agree with the following strategy:
When I read answer choice (D), I stop reading at the comma and proceed with a quick elimination:

Why? Because that answer choice is conditional on rigorous enforcement, which (as far as we know) is not part of the plan. Therefore, I cannot imagine ANY text after the comma that would save this answer choice from elimination. The clause following the comma is a hypothetical whose likelihood we have no way of evaluating, so I'd rather not read it. Since every wrong answer choice has something about it that will seduce test takers, I'd rather not expose myself to whatever that thing is.
This strategy requires a VERY slow reading pace, with a reluctance to read any more text than I absolutely have to (I'm lazy by nature).

Hello, Avi. I chuckled when I read the end of your post. Spurred by your parenthetical, I went back and checked my own posts for the keyword lazy: I have called myself just that in half a dozen posts, all in response to Quant questions. I find myself having to work a little harder in Verbal, but I aspire to be just as lazy.

- Andrew

A lot of the explanations on why D is wrong attacks how "restrictive" the lanes will be. I assumed that if the number of lanes were reduced, that would be the restriction, and there wouldn't be anything a car could do? Would how often they drive on the curb create a certain degree of restriction that you can quantify? I'm not sure if that line of thinking makes sense. If someone can explain, that would be great.

Thank you experts all for your kind responses and explanations!
I've learned more during this process.

Thank you for your elaborations of the use of "IF" structure and "more," but I would like to discuss the phrasing "would otherwise be," since it confuses me the most.



KarishmaB Yes I understand this point. I also mention in my previous post by saying "Does not the option (D), with the phrasing "otherwise," refer to all the situations except for the situation in which the plan is enforced strictly?" I appreciate the expert's breakdown of the sentence into (I) and (II), but I do not think that we have to choose just one of them, since "otherwise" refers to both scenarios.

Though, I still have one doubt: cannot we use the information that a plan, when strictly enforced, has some effects, to infer that the plan, when enforced by a normal degree, will also have some effects?

I think this is the crux preventing me from eliminating (D), because I do think, partly because of my understanding of the real world, that if a plan, when strictly executed, has some effects, the plan will also have some effects when it is normally executed.

I really like your chemistry example, and I can see why the statement "If you heat it to 500 degrees celsius, the components are more likely to separate than otherwise" might not be helpful in convincing people of the plan's success, because we do not know whether the plan entails heating the mixture to 500 degrees. But it is science, and we know that chemical reactions only occur when the specific conditions are satisfied. 499 degrees, even though just fewer by one degree, might not prompt the chemical reaction that 500 degrees prompt.

But in my opinion, that is not how a plan works in the real world--a plan is not a chemical formula. If a plan has some effects when it is executed strictly, it should also have some effects when strictly normally. This is my personal understanding of plans and their execution in the real world. I factored it in for this CR question in the same way I factor in common senses for CR questions.

To be honest, surely I can think of some examples that a plan has no effect unless it is strictly implemented, but they are not many, so I ignored such examples in my previous reasoning.

KarishmaB you are absolutely right that test takers can learn something from this official question. My personal takeaway is that my understanding of how plans work might need to be corrected--whether a plan will achieve its goal when it is normally executed might not be inferred from the information that the plan has some effects when strictly executed. I take it as a message from CR test designers.

To elaborate more why I interpret the option (D) as saying that the plan has some effects when strictly enforced, I think the information "more people will be attracted to downtown businesses" supports this interpretation, regardless of whether the comparison of the number of visitors is between when the plan is rigorously enforced and when there is no such plan, or between when the plan is strictly enforced and when the plan is normally enforced.

Thank you again for your response.



Thank you zhanbo for your compliment. Your comment made my day.

But in fact I've never scored 6 for AWA in my previous attempts. I think the key factor is the amount of time I have for writing. Usually I spend at least one hour writing a post in the CR section--partially organizing my lines of thinking and partially making my sentences as clear and concise as possible. Sometimes I figure out the question on the way and then I I will stop writing the post. By writing I intend to learn rather than practice for AWA, but I feel that writing at this forum greatly helps prepare for AWA. I hope that my AWA scores could be better next time.



Sometimes I also like solving CR questions with numbers, and I appreciate your examples.

I think that the use of "more" in the option (D) "If the proposed lane restrictions on drivers are rigorously enforced, more people will likely be attracted to downtown businesses than would otherwise be." implies that there will be an increase in the number of visitors when the plan is strictly enforced, but I also see that it is unclear where the baseline is.

If we interpret the option (D) as saying "more people will be attracted when the plan is strictly enforced than when there is no such plan (baseline 1)," we do not know whether more people will be attracted when the plan is normally enforced.

If we interpret the option (D) as saying "more people will be attracted when the plan is strictly enforced than when the plan is normally enforced (baseline 2)," we still do not know whether the number of visitors will be higher when the plan is normally executed than when there is no such plan.

Hence, I can understand now why the option (D) is wrong, however I dislike the option (C) for the reasons that have been mentioned by many members in previous posts.

Thank you for your response.



Thank you AndrewN for elaborating more on your approaches and thoughts.

To be completely honest, I cannot eliminate the option (D) just because it uses the "IF" structure, although several experts whom I respect have criticized this structure. I remember that some correct answers also use the "IF" structure, and next time when I review them or run into a new question that also uses "IF" structure in the correct answer, I might write a follow up posts for test takers' reference.

But I can understand your main point. Thank you for your advice and help as always.

PS. Andrew, I do not think that you are lazy at all. I can see that you put time and thoughts in your posts when answering members' questions. And you also reply membes' questions quickly. "Lazy" is the final adjective I think of if I am to describe you.



Thank you avigutman for your explanations! Your method is efficient as always.

I had the contrary idea previously--I thought that if a plan has some effects when it is executed strictly, it should also have some effects when strictly normally. This was based on my personal opinion and understanding of how plans work in the real world. Since our task is to find a strengthener instead of a proof that the plan will definitely achieve its goal, I thought that (D) was not bad. But I've seen why (D) is not ideal and explained it above.

Thank you for your help, time and thoughts!