Editorial: In order to preserve the health of its localEditorial: In

I call these questions "policy proposal" questions, and they always follow the same pattern. Someone suggests a certain course of action (here "don't let Costmart in") and outlines a very specific objective of that course of action (here "in order to preserve the local economy"). Regardless of what the question asks (strengthen/weaken/evaluate), the right answer will almost always be directly related to the specific objective of the policy. So that's the part of the question I zero in on.

Here the argument goes: we don't want Costmart. Why? Bankruptcy goes up. Therefore the local economy will suffer. Well, "higher bankruptcy rate" is not precisely the same thing as "local economy suffers". Maybe the local economy will be helped in other ways, ways that make up for the higher bankruptcy rate. That's why C is the best answer here.
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I believe the answer is C. Here is my explanation:

The questions states that when CostMart opens in a city, stores in that city go bankrupt at an increasing rate. Because of this, CostMart should not be allowed to open in Metropolis. To evaluate this claim, one must ask whether or not anything else has happened. For example, if CostMart is causing local retailers to go bankrupt, but providing more jobs and lower prices than those local retailers, that positive may outweigh the negative of the bankruptcy.

C perfectly answers the question. If there are economic benefits that result from CostMart opening, that may outweigh any negatives associated with CostMart's opening.

Commdiver is right. C is the answer because make strong and weak at the same time the question posed

basically the argument says if the costmart opening is good or bad. we know that only and if only we can compare a previous situation, similar, in another area. is logic guys

(A) Does the bankruptcy rate of local retailers in a city generally stabilize severalyears after a CostMart warehouse department store opens? doesn't help

(B) Do most residents of Metropolis currently do almost all of their shopping at stores within the city limits of Metropolis? is not the point

(C) Have other cities that have permitted CostMart warehouse department stores within city limits experienced any economic benefits as a result? if true is better avoiding to permit Costmart to open because it hurts our economy. If is not true, come in Cost mart maybe we can have advantages from this: new hiring and so on

(D) Is the bankruptcy rate for local retailers in Metropolis higher than in the average city that has permitted a CostMart warehouse department store within city limits? well is not useful. we are talking about bankruptcy itself not the average between to city


(E) Does CostMart plan to hire employees exclusively from within Metropolis forthe proposed warehouse department store? exclusively is not the point to make stronger or weaker the argument conclusion

Try to figure out ALWAYS what's going on for the argument at stake. always. this is really an upper level question. do not dive into the options too earlier, try to make the argument simple and do some assumption or to understand the whole picture
Hope this helps
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(B) Do most residents of Metropolis currently do almost all of their shopping at stores within the city limits of Metropolis?

If yes - CostMart opening outside the city may make the plan unsuccessful as people will go outside the city and shop
If no - CostMart opening outside the city may make the plan successful as people will not go outside the city and shop

I know OA is C. With the above logic, why can B not be the answer? Thanks in advance.

We do not want to evaluate if the CostMart will be successful. We want to evaluate this sentence:
"In order to preserve the health of its local economy, Metropolis should not permit a CostMart warehouse department store to open within city limits."

So the argument says: because the CostMart will open, so local economy will suffer.

(C) Have other cities that have permitted CostMart warehouse department stores within city limits experienced any economic benefits as a result?
C asks that, even tough the bankruptcy rate of local retailers increased, the OVERALL economy benefits as a result of the opening. So the local economy as result will not suffer. So even a single result is negative, the sum of all consequences is positive.

(B) Do most residents of Metropolis currently do almost all of their shopping at stores within the city limits of Metropolis?
YES/NO, it's not important which answer this question receives. We can only establish whether residents shops within the city limits, not enough to say that the local economy will suffer as result of the opening.

Hope I've explained myself well

Hi mahendru1992,

Read this part of the argument:
It has been demonstrated that when CostMart opens a warehouse department
store within a city, the bankruptcy rate of local retailers increases in that city by
twenty percent over the next several years.

The statement is a generalized statement applicable to all cities. Citing this fact, if any such city that permitted CostMart warehouse department
stores within city limits has experienced any economic benefits, it is likely that same economic benefits will be experienced by other cities that permit CostMart warehouse department stores within city limits. Hence option C stands

Hope it clear

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Read it from some other website, and found it useful to understand the queston

Method of Reasoning questions focus on how an argument is attempted, contradicted, or put forth. We can tell we need to focus on the Method of Reasoning because of the word "evaluating" in the question-stem. More specifically, this is an "Evaluate the Plan" question. Since we'll be "evaluating" the conclusion here, we want to pay close attention to what the author uses to support his conclusion.

Question Rephrase: What is MOST USEFUL to evaluate the Conclusion?

It's almost asking, which question would be a potential DEALBREAKER for the Conclusion.

So let's analyze the argument:

Conclusion: no CM within city to preserve (+) econ

Evidence: when CM opens within cities, 20% increase in bankruptcy rate

There's a lot of assumptions here:

1) what holds true for other cities holds true for M
2) increase B-rate means a less healthy economy
3) CM outside the city couldn't inflict same damage

I can't think of any other obvious ones, and obviously 3) seems the strongest.

For our prediction, I'd recommend turning these assumptions into questions:

-is what's true for other cities true for M?
-does more bankrupcy = less healthy economy?
-if CM opens outside the city, could it still damage economy?

Let's eliminate answer choices that don't line up with these types of questions.

A - even if it does, it could still hurt M - remove
B - slightly related to CM opening outside the city, but doesn't address economy damage - remove
C - this is a perfect rephrase for the 1st assumption - keep
D - the comparative rates don't matter, we don't even know if bankrupcy necessarily means a less healthy economy - remove
E - whether they do or don't, this doesn't address whether the overall economy will be less healthy - remove

The only answer choice that even remotely matches our prediction is C.

Remember: CR is NOT creative writing time, especially on method of reasoning questions. Be very wary of answer choices such as E which seem to involve the topics from the passage, but do NOT deal directly with the conclusion (that the economy is less healthy because of the store opening).

Hope this helps! Remember our strategy for these will always be to:

1) recognize the CR Q-type and what your job is,
2) thoroughly analyze and break down the argument on your scratch pad, and
3) come up with at least 1 solid prediction for the correct answer
4) THEN look at the answer choices, eliminating those that are too far from your prediction

Good luck! Smile

From this I understood why I always do "Policy proposal" questions wrong.
I treat "Policy proposal" as cause -and -effect/
So I chose D.

However, D is mentioned only in the premise. D is actually saying the evidence is not strong enough. Could be related but not as strong.

Conclusion: To preserve healthy economy, no Action A
= Action A can harm health of economy
because
Premise: Action A - high bankruptcy rate
Q: Evaluate

Choices:
C: Action A has some benefits for economy
D: The evidence is not good enough

Strengthen are all around the "goal" ,which is "preserve the health of its local economy",
I stared at C for a long time , considering picking it ( the first half seems very appealing),but I was not sure whether " economic benefits. However, I know that "X premise but still conclusion" is a good way to weaken it.

Dear AjiteshArun VeritasKarishma,

I have 2 questions on the correct choice C:

Q1. How do you know that "other cities" does apply to "Metropolis"? (The 2 are just different cities after all)
Q2. How do you know that "economic benefits" in choice C. actually outweigh or offset economic negative results from bankruptcy, i.e. local people would probably lose jobs?

I am really not sure why it is the correct option. In my opinion, choice E. is better because it states what Costmart would do in Metropolis, not in some other random cities. Moreover, hiring local people is definitely a clear "economic benefit" here.

The above confusion may be the reason why 60% of people got it wrong

Thank you in advance!

Answer C
My reasoning :-
Conclusion:-
To preserve healthy Economy = Opening of Costmart warehouse department store Should be barred
Premise:- Opening of Costmart warehouse department store results in bankruptcy of Local retails= negative Effect of Economy
Answer C: Highlights the relationship between Opening of Costmart warehouse department store and Its Effect on Economy

Hi varotkorn,

Although we cannot say for sure that something that affects other cities will apply to Metropolis as well, it is a useful piece of information to have. As for your second question, again, that is not something we can say with complete certainty. However, using information like this is essential in CR as we typically don't see "perfect" options in CR.

If you'd rather do an official question, here is the official question that this question is based on.
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As per the argument -
It has been demonstrated that when Costmart opens a warehouse department store within a city, the bankruptcy rate of local retailers increases in that city by twenty percent over the next several years

This has been established as the norm. When Costmart opens in a city, bankruptcy among local retailers increases. The argument doesn't make us believe that Metropolis is special in any way such that the norm may not be applicable to it. Hence, it can be expected that it will be applicable to Metropolis too.
Also, it is a relevant question whether there are any economic benefits. If it is answered positively, then the benefit vs loss comparison can be done.
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AjiteshArun

Below is my reasoning for why the answer could be option 'B'.

Yes, if most of the metropolis people do most of their shopping outside the city then the retailers in the city were already not adding much to the local economy. Therefore, the opening of the Costmart shop will not impact the local economy.

But, if it's 'No most of the metropolis people do not do most of their shopping outside the city' and shop within the city then the opening of the CostMart shop will affect the local economy.

Please help me in understanding the flaw in my logic.

Thanks
Saurabh

Hi AjiteshArun VeritasKarishma

If you can please help me out with my above query.


Thanks
Saurabh

Question: Do most residents of Metropolis currently do almost all of their shopping at stores within the city limits of Metropolis?

Yes, most people do all their shopping within the city limits.
Ok, when Costmart opens, local stores will see higher bankruptcy.

No, most people do not do all their shopping within city limits.
It's ok. Even if many people or some people shop within city limits, it is supporting the local economy. Even if most people do a bit of shopping here, it is supporting local economy. When Costmart opens, local stores will be hit. Even if people from other cities come to shop here, someone is supporting the local stores. They will be hit when Costmart opens here.

The point is, it doesn't matter who is shopping, the local stores will get affected.
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In my view, your explanation for "yes" part is like a coin maintaining its position on its round edge. It is neither head nor tail.
For evaluation type CR problem, answer choice should strengthen for one side and weaken for other side.

Moreover, as it is mentioned in argument, it is general issues that opening of C stores increase the bankruptcy of local stores. Therefore, it applies to other cities as well.
In last, we have to evaluate the conclusion of argument which is stating that opening f C store shouldn't be permitted.

VeritasKarishma GMATNinja -- I chose E on this unfortunately.

Is my reasoning for eliminating E accurate in your view ?
Yes - CostMart plans to hire exclusively from within Metropolis only for this warehouse
No - CostMart does not plan to hire exclusively from within Metropolis only for this warehouse

If yes, this plan to hire locally only will offset the losses from the 20 % bankruptcy. Now how much of an offset, we don't know. Here are 3 scenario's
1a) they could hire all of folks (all local) who lost their jobs since their entry (all of the 20 % of folks who lost their jobs)
1b) they could hire only 50 % of the folks (all local) who lost their jobs since Cost Mart entered.
1c) they could hire only 0.0001 % of the folks (all local folks) who lost their jobs since CostMart entered.

Hence depending on the scenario, this may weaken the conclusion (if scenario 1a or 1b played out) or strengthen the conclusion (if scenario 1c played out)

If No, CostMart will hire folks locally & internationally. Now this may or may not offset the losses from the 20 % retail bankruptcies from Metropolis.

Let's say
CostMart hired 50 % local and 50 % international

2a) they could hire all of folks who lost their jobs since Cost Mart's entry into Metropolis [CostMart may have to fill so many new job openings, that even though they are hiring 50 % only from Metropolis , it is still enough to cover for all jobs lost in Metropolis since CostMart's entry]
2b) they could hire only half of the folks who lost their jobs since Cost Mart entered.
2c) they could hire only 0.0001 % of the folks who lost their jobs since CostMart entered.

Hence depending on the scenario, this may weaken the conclusion (if scenario 2a or 2b played out) or strengthen the conclusion (if scenario 2c played out)

Because between the two paths (Yes | No) , each paths have no CLEAR strengthener / weakener -- hence E is not optimal ?

(E) is relevant but not correct. It is one aspect of economic benefit that Costmart could bring to the region in the form of increased employment. But a better, more wholesome question would certainly be whether there are economic benefits to allowing Costmart.

Also the use of the word "exclusively" makes option (E) incorrect. Does it matter whether Costmart employs "exclusively" from the city? No. Say they get their manager from outside but employ others from the city. That could still be great for the city.
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