Kayla: Many people are reluctant to shop in our neighborhood because

K - Many people don't shop here because of scarce street parking.
C - Add parking meters with time limits that ensure that parking spaces are generally available
K - This plan will backfire. Shoppers dislike paying at parking meters, so most will probably drive to other neighborhoods to shop at malls with free parking

Questions: What should C say now? How should the city council rebut Kayla's objection (that the plan will backfire since people dislike paying at parking meters)

A. Most shoppers dislike hunting for scarce street parking spaces much more than they dislike paying for metered parking spaces.

If C says that the plan will make the situation better (even if not ideal), that helps. If most people dislike hunting for street parking (the current situation) much more than paying at meters (the plan) then it is expected that the plan will make the situation better. It may not completely turn the situation around but will still make it better. Hence it is unlikely that the plan will "backfire". This is correct.

B. The city could post signs with street parking time limits to ensure that parking spaces become available without forcing shoppers to pay at meters.

C needs to defend the plan, not come up with a new plan. Irrelevant.

C. Currently, most shoppers in the neighborhood drive only occasionally to shop at malls in other neighborhoods.

Whatever the current situation is, it needs improvement. That is why city council is coming with a plan.

D. The neighborhood already contains a parking lot where shoppers must pay to park.

This doesn't help defend the plan. If anything, it is a factor against the plan.

E. The nearby malls with free parking have no parking time limits to help ensure that parking spaces in their lots become available.

This just tells us what the current situation is in nearby malls. They have free parking with no time limit. Does it make parking space somewhat scarce? May be. Do people prefer spending time looking for parking in free parking spaces or do they prefer paying parking charges? We don't know.
So will our plan improve our condition or not? This doesn't tell us.

There are 3 ways of parking:
- Scarce free street parking - Our condition right now
- Free parking space without time limits (which might make parking space somewhat scarce) - Condition of nearby malls
- Paid metered parking with time limits (which ensures that parking is generally available) - Our condition with the plan

Option (A) tells us that people prefer third one to first one. So it says that our condition is likely to improve (so the plan is likely to work)
Option (E) tells us what kind of parking nearby malls have. But it doesn't tell us what people prefer. So we don't know whether our plan will work or not.

Answer (A)

I chose A; here's why:

Problem: Street Parking is scarce.
Solution: Add parking meters (with time limits) to ensure parking spaces are generally available.
Kayla's objection: Plan will backfire as people don’t like to pay fee. They will drive to other neighborhoods to shop at malls with free parking.

We need to counter Kayla's objection. Correct answer must establish that plan will not backfire i.e. it must indicate that people will continue to shop at the neighborhood despite being charged parking fee.

B. The city could post signs with street parking time limits to ensure that parking spaces become available without forcing shoppers to pay at meters. – This option suggests a way to avoid paying parking fee by adhering to timelines. Being aware of time limits is not the same as not having to pay. There is no reason to believe that people would not be repelled merely by the time restrictions. They might still prefer to go to other malls having unrestricted free parking.

C. Currently, most shoppers in the neighborhood drive only occasionally to shop at malls in other neighborhoods. – This option just tells us the current scenario. Does not specify why people would continue to shop at the neighborhood despite being charged parking fee.

D. The neighborhood already contains a parking lot where shoppers must pay to park. – Not sufficient to conclude that people do not mind paying parking fee. May be the current parking lot is not being used at all.

E. The nearby malls with free parking have no parking time limits to help ensure that parking spaces in their lots become available. – This option in turn points out that other malls might not have parking space available. It does not rule out the possibility that people will go to other malls whenever they can find parking space at such malls.

A. Most shoppers dislike hunting for scarce street parking spaces much more than they dislike paying for metered parking spaces. – This answer correctly indicates that scarcity of parking space is a bigger problem than parking fee. If people are not going to other malls in current scenario, they would obviously not go to other malls once the scarcity problem is solved – even if they have to pay fee.

Official Explanation

Evaluation of a Plan

Which one of the answer responses provides the best rebuttal to Kayla's objection?

Kayla tells us that a city plans to install parking meters on streets where shoppers in a shopping neighborhood try to park. The meters would have time limits designed to ensure increased availability of parking.

Nevertheless, Kayla believes the plan will have the opposite effect since people dislike paying for parking and are likely to shop instead at a mall where parking is free.

It is important to determine whether shoppers are likely to be deterred from shopping at this mall because they dislike paying to park at time-
limited meters.

A. Correct. Shoppers currently try to park on the streets where meters will be installed. These shoppers find searching for a parking space increasingly difficult. It is possible that shoppers actually dislike searching for parking spaces more than they dislike paying for parking spaces. If this is the case, there is no reason to believe that these customers will leave the neighborhood to shop elsewhere.

B. This answer choice suggests a potential alternative to installing parking meters. This does not provide a rebuttal to Kayla's objection.

C. While many shoppers do not often drive to other neighborhoods to shop, this could change once the meters were installed.

D. We are given no information concerning the cost or availability of parking in the parking lot, or its proximity to the shopping portion of the neighborhood.

E. We are given no precise information about the relative availability of parking spaces at the nearby malls. However, given Kayla's concern, it can reasonably be inferred that there is no significant shortage of free parking spaces at these malls.

The correct answer is A.

How to eliminate E? Any strong reasoning because E says that as their is no time limit for parking space, people will again find it difficult to park. Does not it weaken the argument?

GMATNinja AjiteshArun VeritasKarishma MartyTargetTestPrep MagooshExpert

There is no parking space in the shopping arena and city officials think that the root cause is that parking is free currently Trafford people are unwilling to vacate. The remedy for this malady is to institute a paid parking system, they think. Kayla opposes the city's project saying that people will resist paid parking and most will move to the next arcade.

We want to prove Kayla wrong by saying that people may not move the neighboring arcades.

A says that people would rather prefer payment to the tedious task of hunting for free space. This amply controverts the logic behind Kayla's thinking.

B does not ensure that in spite of time limits for parking, one can get parking space as and when he or she wants.

E also cannot give guarantee that parking lot will still be available because of the free parking space. If one is not certain, it will be risk to taken especially when the parking is free and unlimited.

I feel that A is the best option.
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Kayla's point is that the plan is a bad one because it will backfire, i.e., make things worse.

How are things in the neighborhood now? Parking is free but scarce.

What's does Kayla imply to be worse? Parking is not scarce but involves paying.

So, free but scarce is, according to Kayla, better than paid but not scarce.

What does (E) indicate? That malls will have no time limits on parking. Does (E) clearly indicate that parking is therefore scarce at malls? NO.

Parking at malls could be different from parking in the neighborhood in a way such that EVEN WITHOUT TIME LIMITS ON PARKING, parking at malls is abundant.

If you decide that, because there are no time limits on parking at malls, parking is scarce at malls, you are making an unwarranted assumption, one that is not supported by what the passage says or by what choice (E) says. Yes, the passage indicates that parking meters are needed for freeing up spaces in the neighborhood, but the passage does not indicate that parking at malls is the same as parking in the neighborhood, choice (E) does not indicate that parking at malls is the same as parking in the neighborhood, and common sense and common knowledge indicate that parking at malls could very well be much different from parking in the neighborhood. So, we have no clear reason to believe that time limits on parking are needed at malls in the way in which they are needed in the neighborhood.

Thus, (E), which says only that the malls do not have time limits on parking, does not indicate that parking spaces are scarce at malls, and therefore does not clearly weaken the support for the conclusion. In fact, (E) could strengthen the support for the conclusion by providing another reason why parking meters would drive people to go to malls rather than to the neighborhood: they wouldn't have to worry about time limits at malls.
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I admire Experts daagh, MartyTargetTestPrep and VeritasKarishma for their Excellent Analysis ,Would like to know where I am missing the link.

Facts :1) Many people are reluctant to shop in our neighborhood because street parking is scarce.

So people are not willing to Shop because parking space is not available enough

2)The city plans to address this by adding parking meters with time limits that ensure that parking spaces are generally available

City plans to address the issue by charging some money so that Parking slots are generally available

3) According to Kayla the Plan will backfire because People don't like to pay money so will go to neighborhood malls where parking is free but People also dislike to Shop in those areas where parking slots are scarce.
Goal: Simply have to weaken the Conclusion made by Kayla ( Which is plan will backfire and people will move to neighborhood)

E) Option E tells that in the nearby malls there is no Parking Fee to make available the Parking slots so we are again moving back to Initial Problem stated by Kayla ,. So If in the neighborhood problem persists then People will not move to neighborhood ,thereby weakening the Conclusion. Kindly Let me know where and What I am missing

(E) DOES NOT SAY that parking is scarce at malls. It say ONLY that malls do not have parking time limits. For all we know from what (E) says, there is an abundance of parking at malls. The parking lots at malls could be such that that, even without time limits on parking, there are plenty of spaces available.

When you say that (E) indicates that parking is scarce at malls, you are making the unnwarranted assumption that, because there are no time limits, parking is scarce.
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Kayla: Many people are reluctant to shop in our neighborhood because street parking is scarce. - Kayla gives a deterministic reason for why many people do not prefer to shop in her neighborhood. The fact that people do not easily find a space to park on the street makes them not likely to shop in the neighborhood.

The city plans to address this by adding parking meters with time limits that ensure that parking spaces are generally available. - The city plans to solve the problem (reluctance of many people to shop in the neighborhood) by fixing the parking scarcity by instituting time limits on parking through parking meters. (Since there will be time limits, the duration of time a car is parked will reduce, making space available for more cars and thus reducing the reluctance of people)

But this plan will surely backfire shoppers dislike paying at parking meters, so most will probably drive to other neighborhoods to shop at malls with free parking. - Here, Kayla goes against the plan of the city. Kayla says that the plan will backfire i.e. instead of increasing the number of shoppers in the neighborhood, the plan will reduce the number. Why does she think so? Because shoppers dislike paying at parking meters. So, she argues, most shoppers will drive to other neighborhoods to shop at malls that provide free parking.

Gist: Many people do not prefer to shop in the neighborhood because street parking is not ample. The city plans to add parking meters with time limits to address this. The author believes the plan will backfire (conclusion) since shoppers dislike paying at meters and will thus drive to other neighborhoods’ malls with free parking (support).


Even though the plan will likely reduce the scarcity of the street parking, Kayla thinks that the plan will backfire. So, according to her, the number of people who are going to come because of availability of parking space now is going to be less than the number of people who are not going to come because of the paid parking. Why would this happen? Kayla states a dislike for paying for parking in absolute terms, but does not compare the dislike with the like for the convenience of ample available parking. What if although many people dislike paying for parking, even more people are willing to pay given the convenience of ample parking?


The question stem asks to find a rebuttal of Kayla’s argument by a proponent of the city’s plan. A proponent of the city’s plan could argue that more people will come because of the availability of the street parking than will not come because of paid parking.


A. Most shoppers dislike hunting for scarce street parking spaces much more than they dislike paying for metered parking spaces.
Correct. This option is in line with what we predicted. The option compares two things in terms of how much they are disliked by most shoppers:

1. Hunting for scarce street parking spaces
2. Paying for metered parking spaces

The option says that most people dislike (1) much more than they dislike (2). So, clearly, if you remove (1) and bring (2), most people are going to prefer the change and are more likely to come to our neighborhood. Thus, this option gives a reason why the city’s plan would work.

B. The city could post signs with street parking time limits to ensure that parking spaces become available without forcing shoppers to pay at meters.
Incorrect. This option talks about an alternate plan that could address the scarcity problem. The argument, however, is that the given plan will backfire and not whether the city could implement an alternate plan.

C. Currently, most shoppers in the neighborhood drive only occasionally to shop at malls in other neighborhoods.
Incorrect. This option has no relevance to Kayla’s argument. What proportion of people go to malls in other neighborhoods or how frequently they go has no impact on Kayla’s argument. Her argument is that whatever the current proportion or frequency, the proportion or frequency will increase if paid parking is introduced.

D. The neighborhood already contains a parking lot where shoppers must pay to park.
Incorrect. This option, to an extent, supports Kayla’s argument in a way that since there is already a paid parking lot, why do we need to make street parking paid? People who care so much about easily available parking space can park at the paid parking lot, where the chances of available parking space are higher.

E. The nearby malls with free parking have no parking time limits to help ensure that parking spaces in their lots become available.
Incorrect. This option talks about the malls with free parking in other neighborhoods. These malls have no parking time limits to ensure that parking spaces are available. So, there is no surety that a parking space will be available in these malls.

Just ’cause there’s no surety doesn’t mean that it’s not going to happen. Right? We are not ‘sure’ that we’ll score a 720; but this doesn’t mean that our 720 is not going to happen. Similarly, no surety that parking spaces will be available doesn’t mean that parking spaces will not be available. Parking spaces may well be available in abundance; it’s just that there is no surety.

For our discussion’s sake, let’s say that parking spaces are indeed not always available or are scarce at these malls too. How does that impact Kayla’s argument? It has no impact since Kayla’s point was that many people are comfortable with scarce parking but are not comfortable with paid parking. So, even if there is scarce parking at other malls, people are still going to run away from paid parking toward scarce parking. Thus, Kayla’s point will still hold.


SC Notes: The use of ‘this’ in the second sentence without a noun following it. ‘this’ refers to the entire first sentence. Contrary to popular belief, this usage is correct. Try this official SC question.

Also, note the use of two ‘that’ very close by: “that ensure that”. A construction doesn’t become wrong just because there are two ‘that’ close by.


If you have any doubts regarding any part of this solution, please feel free to ask.

Option (D) is certainly wrong because we need to provide an objection to Kayla's reasoning. Kayla believes that paid parking meters will not serve much purpose. IF you say that there is already a paid parking lot (which means paid parking meters may not add a lot of extra value), you are not rebutting Kayla. If anything, you are helping her.

MartyTargetTestPrep VeritasKarishma DmitryFarber GMATNinja
AjiteshArun

I have doubt w.r.t option A .

CONCLUSION of the Argument (as per kayla) : this plan will surely backfire.

Basis for the conclusion(Kayla's opinion): shoppers dislike paying at parking meters, so most will probably drive to other neighborhoods .

Kayla's has clearly stated & not assumed that Most shoppers dislike paying and thus will move to neighborhood.However option A says Most shoppers dislike hunting for space more than paying for space..- as per my understanding Option A is directly contradicting kayla's BELIEF BY DISCUSSING ABOUT SAME GROUP OF PEOPLE i.e MOST SHOPPERS.

Secondy,Moreover, option A says People dislike hunting for space for than paying for...How can this option be correct when it is already given in the argument that people will move to malls to shop.So if they are going to mall where there is ample space, then why they have to hunt for space

Please share your understanding- is it correct to negate belief directly, on the basis of which conclusion is drawn.


Thanks

Hi gmatassassin88,

I don't think we should see option A as contradicting that statement. It's a little like this:
1. People dislike X.
2. People dislike Y much more than they dislike X.

Here, (2) does not mean that people suddenly like X. It just means that there is something (Y) that they dislike even more than they dislike X.
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AjiteshArun

My second Query evolves to your explanation to the first query: When there is option available to move to mall,then why most shoppers would even prefer Paying more or search for space.Moving mall is better than paying or searching at the parking street

Posted from my mobile device

Hi gmatassassin88,

I hesitated to respond to your second question because I wasn't sure whether you were looking at the word mall the right way.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but it seems that you're looking at this as a move from one neighborhood to malls in general. The situation is not really that people will move to malls. We should look at it as "they will move to other malls" (or from one neighborhood to other neighborhoods). More specifically, they will go to malls that don't have parking meters.

One way to see this is to look at how the question describes the "move":
... so most will probably drive to other neighborhoods to shop at malls with free parking.

The question says that people will move from this neighborhood to other neighborhoods. Also, keep in mind that there is no comma between malls and with free parking. The with free parking is used to specify the type of malls Kayla is talking about.

With that (small) issue out of the way, it's easier to see why A is correct.
1. Many people are reluctant to shop in our neighborhood because street parking is scarce.
2. (1) will be addressed by adding parking meters with time limits that ensure that parking spaces are generally available.
3. But shoppers dislike paying at parking meters, so most will probably drive to other neighborhoods to shop at malls with free parking.
4. Therefore, the plan will backfire. ← This is Kayla's conclusion.

Kayla thinks people will "shift" neighborhoods because they don't like paying at parking meters. But we know that many people are reluctant to shop in this neighborhood because street parking is scarce. Option A tells us that the "parking space problem" is much bigger than the "paying at parking meters" problem. The city is fixing that (much bigger) problem. That's a reasonably good reason to expect people to continue shopping in this particular neighborhood.

In other words: "There is a problem X. Fixing X creates another problem Y. But Y is a much smaller problem than X. So fixing A is the right step to take".

A couple of things to keep in mind:
1. We're not interested in why the people who shop in this neighborhood do so. Maybe because it's closer, maybe because it has shops they like... we don't really need to worry about this. They haven't shifted from this neighborhood to malls in other neighborhoods till now, and that is enough for us.
2. There is no information about whether the other malls have adequate parking space or not. All we know is that there is (currently) no charge for parking in those neighborhoods.
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Dear MartyTargetTestPrep VeritasKarishma

I would like to thank you for your great explanation.

I want to ask about choice E by another way. How does a student could fall in trap for choice E? How mistakenly could someone consider it as right answer? I tired to do so but could not.

I hope you can help me

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If Kayla neighborhood then gives reasons to leave so it would strengthen Kayla’s conclusion
If others neighborhood then gives reasons for guests not to move out of kayla’s neighborhood . this would weaken the conclusion.

Question:
1. in option D, neighborhood refers to Kayla's neighborhood, right?
2. if in option D, the option was [ The other neighborhood already contains a parking lot where shoppers must pay to park] then this could be our answer?
or it would be rejected like B because it doesn't defend the plan ( cause) directly but prevents the effect. In this particular question we are looking for option then can defend the plan.

Is my understanding right above?


3. If in the question it is simple weaken question, ( without explicit defending city plan but weakening the argument( Kayla conclusion )) , then B would strongly weaken the argument followed by D followed by A, right?
please suggest.

AjiteshArun

Option (E) is attacking "so most will probably drive to other neighborhoods to shop at malls with free parking."
by saying that they have no parking time limit so people will not be in a hurry to leave. They are trying to imply that parking may not be available in nearby malls so plan may not backfire. But all it actually says is that there are no parking time limits in nearby malls. Perhaps time limits are not required there because there is plenty of parking for everyone. Option (E) does not lead us to believe that parking will be troublesome at other places too. In any case, if it did lead us to believe that, since people don't like to pay for parking, they could still prefer to hunt for a spot in other malls. So (E) doesn't weaken the argument.

In any case, when you are clear that (E) is not the answer and it is not, why to invite trouble and force yourself to think why someone else could think it could be the answer? If your mind is clear, great!

Hi itsSKR,

You're right: "The neighborhood" refers to Kayla's neighborhood, but the presence of a ("one") parking lot in the neighborhood doesn't really make much of a difference. That parking lot could be anywhere. If we increased that number ("all") or said that no other neighborhood has malls with free parking, then we'd get stronger options, but I don't think the GMAT would put us in such a position.
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Kayla: Many people are reluctant to shop in our neighborhood because street parking is scarce. The city plans to address this by adding parking meters with time limits that ensure that parking spaces are generally available. But this plan will surely backfire—shoppers dislike paying at parking meters, so most will probably drive to other neighborhoods to shop at malls with free parking.

Which of the following, if true, would be the most logically effective rebuttal a proponent of the city's plan could make to Kayla's objection?

Premise: pay for parking so parking will be available. Shopper don't like paying for parkingg.
Conclusion: the plan will backfire
This is weakening question. To attack this, we must pay attention to the premise. It says that shoppers dislike paying for parking, but not that they dislike paying for parking more than going around searching for parking space. The conclusion mentions that shopper prefer free space, but it is not confirmed that the space will be available when the shoppers need it.

A. Most shoppers dislike hunting for scarce street parking spaces much more than they dislike paying for metered parking spaces. Yes. This option attacks the assumption. Paying for the parking is a pain, but going around searching for place to park is an even more painful
B. The city could post signs with street parking time limits to ensure that parking spaces become available without forcing shoppers to pay at meters. The premise mention about paying for parking, so this question attack the premise. This is not a good way to weaken the argument
C. Currently, most shoppers in the neighborhood drive only occasionally to shop at malls in other neighborhoods. But the ones who do drive could find the money paid for parking not worthy
D. The neighborhood already contains a parking lot where shoppers must pay to park. So what. The shoppers could go to other place further
E. The nearby malls with free parking have no parking time limits to help ensure that parking spaces in their lots become available. So shoppers could venture further to find a mall with free space