vasuca10 wrote:
VeritasPrepHailey mam please explain this question in details with POE as I am getting confused in understanding
Hey,
vasuca10 - happy to chat through this one! (
varotkorn, I know this is a bit delayed - but hopefully this addresses your question as well!)
Quote:
Although the discount stores in Goreville central shopping district are expected to close within five years as a result of competition from a SpendLess discount department store that just opened, those locations will not stay vacant for long. In the five years since the opening of Colson's, a nondiscount department store, a new store has opened at the location of every store in the shopping district that closed because it could not compete with Colson's.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
Here, we're looking to break up the connection between the evidence/premise:
"In the five years since the opening of Colson's, a nondiscount department store, a new store has opened at the location of every store in the shopping district that closed because it could not compete with Colson's."
and its corresponding conclusion:
"those locations will not stay vacant for long." (referring to the new vacancies expected to open because of SpendLess.)
So, we want something that addresses the gap between "in the past, a new store has opened in any location closed by the competition of Colson's, a non-discount store" and "the same will be true for the stores closed as a result of competition from SpendLess."
Already... the gap should start to become clear. Just because this happened in the past with the introduction of a non-discount store... doesn't necessarily mean it will happen now with the introduction of a discount store. The argument has conflated two different scenarios that won't necessarily react the same way.
Let's find an answer that addresses that gap:
Quote:
(A) Many customers of Colson's are expected to do less shopping there than they did before the SpendLess store opened.
Even if this is true, it doesn't address why the fact that vacant stores were quickly replaced in the past doesn't necessarily tell us the same will happen now. It perhaps gives us reason to believe SpendLess could grab some of Colson's customer base.. but this doesn't inherently tell us the vacant storefronts *won't* be filled/that there won't be other stores that have the opportunity to compete.
Quote:
(B) Increasingly, the stores that have opened in the central shopping district since Colson's opened have been discount stores.
Hmm... if the stores replacing the ones that were chased out by Colson's aren't direct competition with Colson's, and are able to compete because they sell items at a discount.. this gives us pretty good reason to believe the same scenario might not be expected now that SpendLess has come into town. (How are these new potential storefronts supposed to compete and differentiate themselves if there are already both competitive discount and non-discount stores around?) We're looking for something that tells us "what was true of the past scenario might not be true of the current one," and (B) does just that! So, we'll want to leave this one in the running while we analyze our other options.
Quote:
(C) At present, the central shopping district has as many stores operating in it as it ever had.
The number of current stores doesn't matter to us at all. If the argument tells us they're expected to close, we're concerned with whether they're likely to be quickly replaced just because in the past, that's what happened. This answer gives us no reason to believe that just because they were replaced last time, we can't necessarily say they will be in this scenario, so this one's out!
Quote:
(D) Over the course of the next five years, it is expected that Goreville's population will grow at a faster rate than it has for the past several decades.
This has no impact on whether new stores could replace expected future vacancies and compete with SpendLess, and more specifically, whether it makes sense to use our past example to conclude so. This one's definitely out. *If anything* - if demand for products in general is going up, we have more reason to believe other stores might survive - and that's the opposite of what we're looking for!
Quote:
(E) Many stores in the central shopping district sell types of merchandise that are not available at either SpendLess or Colson's.
Again, this does not address why it might not make sense to use the past example with Colson's to draw the same conclusion for the storefronts potentially replacing the vacancies left by the competition of SpendLess. If anything, the fact that the current stores sell unique products would have given us good reason to believe that they could remain competitive (though we're already told they're predicted to close) or at the very least, that other stores with unique offerings could replace them. So, if we're looking for a way this answer choice impacts the argument, if anything - it strengthens the conclusion (though the connection between evidence and conclusion remains relatively un-impacted as it stands).
So, if we want something that specifically tells us "just because this happened in the past with Colson's doesn't mean it is expected to happen again with SpendLess," (B) does exactly that! If the stores that were able to replace vacancies and remain competitive did so because they were discount stores, this gives us great reason to believe that SpendLess will prevent a similar replacement from happening this time around.
It sounds like in both of your cases, you were focused too exclusively on "will SpendLess knock out all of the competition?" rather than breaking up the connection between the past example and its potential current explanation. Keep in mind, when we strengthen or weaken an argument, we aren't trying to strengthen just the conclusion "in a vacuum." We're looking to address the gap in logic between evidence and conclusion (and the assumption underlying that gap) to either expose (weaken) or bridge (strengthen) that gap.
I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions!
_________________
Hailey Cusimano
GMAT Tutor and Instructor