Mayor: Last year the city of Honigsburg passed a law exempting busines

Mayor: Last year the city of Honigsburg passed a law exempting businesses from city property taxes on any new retail, office, or manufacturing buildings built within the city. Critics of the law worry that the lost revenue from taxes will hurt the city, but it cannot be denied that the law has created more jobs for the residents of Honigsburg. After all, in the year that the law has been on the books businesses have broken ground on more than 20 new retail, office, and manufacturing buildings right here in Honigsburg.

Which of the following, if true, best weakens the mayor’s argument?

A. Some of the people who will work in the new buildings will commute to Honigsburg from neighboring cities.

B. The plans and permits for the new buildings had all been filed before the law was passed.
=> the new buildings were anyways going to be constructed. Therefore the law has nothing to do with the creation of new jobs. => Correct

C. Several of the businesses that are constructing new buildings plan to close their existing buildings after they are able to move.
Has no effect on the conclusion. Incorrect

D. The manufacturing buildings under construction will rely heavily on automation, employing fewer people than do the city’s current factories. => This comparison is not relevant.

E. The Honigsburg city treasurer expects gross receipts from property taxes to be lower over the next five years than they had been the previous five years. =>Again doesn't affect the mayors conclusion. Incorrect

C is wrong as it mentioned "plan to close " , it is not sure yet thus B is the closest one !

Mayor: Last year the city of Honigsburg passed a law exempting businesses from city property taxes on any new retail, office, or manufacturing buildings built within the city. Critics of the law worry that the lost revenue from taxes will hurt the city, but it cannot be denied that the law has created more jobs for the residents of Honigsburg. After all, in the year that the law has been on the books businesses have broken ground on more than 20 new retail, office, and manufacturing buildings right here in Honigsburg.

Now let us break the Mayor's word in simple terms - This law exempting the property tax and this indeed helped in jobs, New Building, retail store and office.

We need to weaken the argument. Now B,C,D is the option which is I guess has confusion. Let me make it simple so that it is easily understood.

Which of the following, if true, best weakens the mayor’s argument?

A. Some of the people who will work in the new buildings will commute to Honigsburg from neighboring cities.
It is totally Out of scope, it is not weakening the argument. Even if they will come to neighboring cities, Job creation is there, New building are there. So Irrelevant.

B. The plans and permits for the new buildings had all been filed before the law was passed.

Now this is the answer. If the plan and permits of the new buildings had been done, then the whole point of job creation as well as discussion of retail stores, building and manufacturing stores will collapse. This means the job creation and the building would be done even if the exemption of the property tax should not be done.

C. Several of the businesses that are constructing new buildings plan to close their existing buildings after they are able to move.

Now this a big trap, some will think this as the answer because they may think if they close the existing building there is just a replacement of a building but no significance creation of the job.
But it is not weakening the below items?


What if the building the company is currently working is not Honigsburg, then this is indeed a good thing that company is coming in Honigsburg.
Why new office, retail stores are also coming?

D. The manufacturing buildings under construction will rely heavily on automation, employing fewer people than do the city’s current factories.

This statement discussed on manufacturing buildings. Let us suppose that manufacturing buildings won't create new job but what about office and retail stores? These are also been developed and they also create jobs.

E. The Honigsburg city treasurer expects gross receipts from property taxes to be lower over the next five years than they had been the previous five years.

This is not weakening the argument.

Ans is B

To weaken this argument, we should find an option that suggests the new buildings might not necessarily be a direct result of the new law or that the new buildings don't necessarily equate to more jobs for the residents of Honigsburg.

Let's evaluate each option:

A. Some of the people who will work in the new buildings will commute to Honigsburg from neighboring cities.
This weakens the argument that more jobs are created for the residents of Honigsburg. However, it doesn't address the causality link between the law and the buildings' construction.

B. The plans and permits for the new buildings had all been filed before the law was passed.
This directly weakens the causality link. If the plans and permits were filed before the law was passed, it suggests that the construction of the buildings may not have been motivated by the tax exemption.

C. Several of the businesses that are constructing new buildings plan to close their existing buildings after they are able to move.
This weakens the argument to some extent because it indicates that while new buildings are coming up, some existing ones will close, which might offset the job gains. However, it doesn't directly address whether the law caused the new constructions.

D. The manufacturing buildings under construction will rely heavily on automation, employing fewer people than do the city’s current factories.
This directly addresses the job creation aspect, suggesting that the new buildings might not result in as many jobs as implied. However, it doesn't tackle the causality link between the law and the buildings' construction.

E. The Honigsburg city treasurer expects gross receipts from property taxes to be lower over the next five years than they had been the previous five years.
This highlights potential negative financial implications for the city, but doesn't specifically weaken the mayor's claim about job creation or the link between the law and the new constructions.

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

In any Weaken problem, your goals should be to:

1) Isolate the conclusion and understand its specifics.

Remember, the conclusion must have a reason "why" somewhere else in the paragraph, and here the only statement that the paragraph tries to explain is "it cannot be denied that the law has created more jobs for the residents of Honigsburg." (Why? Because there are new building being built after the law went into effect)

2) Think about the gap between the premises and conclusion.

Here you know that a law was passed that would make it attractive for businesses to build new buildings in the city, and the conclusion is that the law has created more jobs and that those jobs are for the residents of Honigsburg. So some important gaps exist:

-Will anyone ever work in those buildings? If so, will those jobs be "new" jobs or just the same jobs moved to new buildings?

-If yes, will those jobs be filled by people from Honigsburg, or exclusively byout of towners?

-And did the law really encourage the extra building, or would the building have happened regardless? (Note: whenever a politician is taking credit for something in a Critical Reasoning question, it's a good idea to think about correlation vs. causation so that the politician doesn't get credit for something that would have happened anyway)

As you assess the answer choices:

(A) hits one of the gaps above (will the jobs be filled by Honigsburgians), but note that the "some" to preface doesn't rule out the idea that many people from Honigsburg could be getting jobs. This means that the buildings will still likely result in a net gain of jobs for Honigsburgians, so A does not necessarily weaken the argument.

(B) hits the correlation vs. causation point perfectly, and is correct. If all of the buildings had been planned and permitted before the law, then the law isn't responsible for anything that has transpired since. This directly weakens the mayor's argument.

(C) is similar to (A) in that it does seem to address a gap (will there be new jobs, or do these buildings just replace existing buildings?) but "several" allows for plenty of new jobs to be created.

(D), too, leaves room for incremental job growth. Even if the new manufacturing are heavily reliant on automation, that isn't the same as saying they're "robot-only" (so someone can still work on them) and that allows for the retail and office buildings to still employ people from Honigsburg.

And (E) is irrelevant to the exact conclusion, which is only that the law will create jobs for people in Honigsburg. (E) might show that, even still, it was a bad idea, but it does not directly weaken the given conclusion.

KarishmaB
MartyMurray AjiteshArun
Can you please explain why B is correct and D is incorrect ?

Posted from my mobile device

­Hi sayan640,

The mayor tells us "the law has created more jobs for the residents of Honigsburg", and their support is "in the year that the law has been on the books businesses have broken ground on more than 20 new retail, office, and manufacturing buildings right here in Honigsburg".

We can weaken this by attacking the link (a) between the law and more buildings/jobs and/or (b) the link between more offices and more jobs. In other words, we can show that more offices ≠ more jobs. We can also show that even if more offices = more jobs, there is no connection with the law.

B. This option tells us that every one of the 20 buildings the mayor is using as support would have been built even without the new law. This means that the contribution of the law is effectively 0.

D. This option tells us that out of the 20 new {retail, office, and manufacturing} buildings, the {manufacturing} buildings will employ fewer people than the city’s current factories do. Even if it's a little smaller, this is still a positive number. Effectively, the law seems to have created (at least) some jobs.

Because 0 (B) < some (D), option B is better than D.