Aroca City currently funds its public schools through taxes on prop

Hello, everyone. I meant to do a writeup on this question two days ago, I think, but life got in the way, as it sometimes does. In any case, whenever you see a boldface question, your best bet is to read the text like any other passage, line by line, with an eye on how all the lines relate to one another, not just the ones in question.

Line one provides background information on how a city funds its public schools.

Line two outlines a new plan, one involving sales tax... on all retail sales in the city.

Line three presents the view of the critics—the sales tax revenues, based on three percent of current retail sales, will be lower than the property tax revenues currently in place.

Line four is a concession, apparent only from a peek ahead at the next line. In short, the critics are correct about the taxes.

Line five turns into a counterargument, starting with the transition nevertheless. According to the speaker/writer, implementing the plan will probably not reduce money for schools. Why?

Line six serves as a premise. Several large retailers will build huge new stores where sales will be subject to the new taxes, and since the proposed sales tax rate is lower than the rate in neighboring municipalities, the new stores are certain to draw large numbers of shoppers from those areas. (When everything seems so large and huge, there is no nuance, and it is easier to follow the argument.)

Line seven is the main conclusion—retail sales... are bound to increase substantially. Between the premise in line six and the conclusion in line seven, there is no room for doubt: notice certain and bound to in those two lines.

Now that we have a better understanding of the passage map, the answer choices ought to prove easier to navigate. We can see at a glance that all five options start with presents a plan, so it can be useful to cluster answer choices. As it just so happens, (A) and (B) go together, as do (C) and (D), while (E) is an outlier. I do not bother jumping across the semicolon until I need to if I can pick off a few poor answer choices first.

This first cluster checks out. It should be clear that the argument favors the plan, and lines four and five match up well with seeks to defend against a certain criticism. Leave these two answers alone for now.

Believe it or not, the article the makes all the difference here. There is no doubt that some or an argument criticizes the plan, but the main argument presented in the passage favors that plan. This argument does the opposite of criticizing the plan. Just like that, forty percent of the answer choices are gone, and we do not have to look at the latter half and burden our minds.

Maybe. As a general rule, if you are uncertain that something is incorrect, leave it be, but do not puzzle over it while the clock ticks away. We already have two perfectly reasonable answer choices above, so just place this one on the back burner while you go back to look at them.

Round 2: The latter half of the remaining answer choices

This is why you want to pay attention to those transition words such as nevertheless. You can figure out who thinks what without getting bogged down in the details. (For instance, if you walked in on someone who was on the phone, and the first word you heard was however, you could assume that whatever was about to follow would stand in contrast to the information that was spoken of before.) Answer choice (A) adds fuel to the fire against the plan, and we know that the argument supports it. Meanwhile, answer choice (B) is a perfect summary of that second boldface. We said that line six serves as a premise, and that line seven was the main argument or conclusion. Since that argument supports the plan, we can say confidently that the second boldface forms part of the basis for that defense.

What about answer choice (E), though? It cannot hurt to take a look.

Now, this cannot be. The goal of the plan is to raise more money for local schools than the current system does, and the success of that plan hinges on these several large retailers opening new stores and attracting shoppers from neighboring municipalities. The use of consequence is debatable, but undesirable is flat-out wrong. The argument uses the penultimate line of the passage to support its position.

In the end, only answer choice (B) holds up to scrutiny, so it is the option we should choose. Good luck with your studies, everyone.

- Andrew