Hahahehe wrote:
Hi
AndrewN,
I feel everyone is trying to avoid the main question being posed by option E, and just driving the debate towards idling and driving. What we really want to know is, that if at the moment, some buses are driving around because of lack of parking space, then wouldn't building of new parking spaces help, as these buses will be able to park themselves there with engines turned off ?
Hi,
Hahahehe. (I typically say "hello," but with your name, I could not resist the wordplay.) I like that you are not taking Expert responses for granted and are choosing instead to write about your concerns. To speak to the point you have brought up, choice (E) presents an unqualified could-be-true scenario: we do not know what may be meant by
some. So that we do not lose track of the task at hand, we should examine the question and relevant answer choices again:
Quote:
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the argument?
(C) Tour buses typically spend less than one-quarter of the time they are in Palitito transporting passengers from one site to another.
(E) Some of the tour buses that are unable to find parking drive around Palitito while their passengers are visiting a site.
The problem with choice (E), as I see it, is that we cannot make heads or tails of
some, and this is a common trap that the GMAT™ question-writers like to employ. As long as we are talking about more than one bus,
some would be applicable. But does that necessarily translate to most strongly supporting the argument, namely that
damage to Palitito's buildings from the buses' exhaust will diminish significantly? For the sake of argument, let us say that the fleet of tour buses in the Palitito area consists of 1,000 buses.
Some could refer to two of them. Maybe these very buses would always be able to park in the assigned parking spaces, but would the damage to the buildings caused by such buses diminish significantly because of it? I am not convinced. Although it could be true that several hundred buses fit into this
some, we cannot say for sure. Choice (C), meanwhile, informs us about
all tour buses: they
typically spend less than one-quarter of the time... so we can deduce that they spend more than three-quarters of the time either parked or idling. The passage goes out of its way to inform us that because of the lack of available parking,
most buses have idled at the curb. If parking is expanded to accommodate
a third of the tour buses, then, using the same 1,000 buses from before, we now have a
guarantee that at least 333 buses will have a place to park at any given time. The GMAT™ likes to deal in certainties, and the reduction in the collective exhaust from these 333 buses is a better bet than the potential reduction from
some buses in (E).
Does that make sense? This is a nightmare of a question for the uninitiated, but once you have gone through a gauntlet of such questions and taken the time to unravel them, you emerge much more attuned to the nuances of the test. Thank you again for calling my attention to this one.
- Andrew
Haha, I agree, it's a username that probably puts a smile on everyone's face.
Thank you so much for clarifying. This makes complete sense. What I learned is that "some" should be interpreted as "at least one", and that certainly cannot have "significant impact". You are right, the more we practice, more critically we'll be able to evaluate and know the test makers' tricks.
11 Aug 2020, 13:15
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