Small Bookstore Owner: Online merchants, including online booksellers

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Overview:

Question presents a statement made by a small bookstore owner about the impending failure of many small businesses due to the advent of online booksellers. The small bookstore owner claims that local businesses are a significant part of a community and that they contribute more than just the products that they sell. The small bookstore owner then concludes with the statement that people should require that online booksellers face restrictions to prevent the complete collapse of local bookstores. The question asks the student to select an answer choice that best explains the assumption on which the small bookstore owner’s reasoning is based. To locate the correct answer, the student needs to focus on several features of the small bookstore owner’s argument: (1) Online booksellers have low prices that local bookstores cannot maintain, (2) local businesses, such as local small bookstores, offer important qualities for a community, and (3) small bookstores may not have prices as low as online booksellers do, but they provide intangible benefits for a community. From this, the student should be able to see that the small business owner’s assumption is that the intangible qualities of local businesses are more valuable than the savings that people will receive from purchasing books online. The correct answer will reflect this.

The Correct Answer:

A Answer choice (A) correctly reflects the explanation in stating that the small bookstore owner’s assumption is about the intangible qualities of community life that small businesses allegedly provide and how these outweigh the extra costs the small businesses must charge. Answer choice (A) is correct.

The Incorrect Answers:

B Answer choice (B) sounds tempting, but it applies an irrelevant statement to the small bookstore owner’s reasoning and, thus, has no immediate connection to the actual statements that the small bookstore owner makes. Answer choice (B) should be eliminated immediately.

C The small bookstore owner does make a statement about online booksellers and their “artificially low prices,” but this does not immediately mean that the prices charged in small, local shops are artificially high. There is a definite implication that the prices charged in the local shops are higher, but there is not enough in the passage to indicate that they are unreasonably so. Answer choice (C) puts words in the small bookstore owner’s mouth that cannot be inferred from the passage, so it is incorrect.

D The small bookstore owner does not necessarily claim that local bookstores alone provide an important venue for community life. In fact, the small bookstore owner seems to be making a statement about all local small businesses and uses the bookstore as an immediate example. Answer choice (D), therefore, is irrelevant to the passage and is incorrect.

E Answer choice (E) does offer—in part, at least—an assumption in the small bookstore owner’s reasoning. The small bookstore owner says, “Citizens should demand that restrictions be placed on online merchants to prevent the eradication of local small businesses.” These restrictions would almost certainly come at the government level, so the small bookstore owner is holding the government partially responsible for assisting in this situation. But this is not immediately connected to the assumption about the importance of small, local businesses. Additionally, answer choice (E) claims that the government is entirely responsible, while the small bookstore owner clearly places some responsibility at the citizen level. Answer choice (E) cannot be correct.
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I request an expert to please correct me if my understanding is wrong.

Question prompt:

The question is not asking to find an ASSUMPTION for the CONCLUSION, right? (as it often does in the standard official GMAT questions)

Argument:


My understanding is:
Conclusion: Citizens should demand that restrictions should be placed on online merchants to prevent the eradication of local small businesses.
Author's reasoning: These local businesses, such as the local bookstore that I own, have always been an important part of the community and have traditionally offered a place for members of the community to gather in a safe, neutral place for discussion. - We are supposed to find an ASSUMPTION for this statement and not for the conclusion.

Am I right?

If there's a gap in the author's reasoning, then the logical structure of the argument isn't sound. And if the logical structure is shaky, then so is the conclusion that's supported by that shaky logical structure.

The conclusion, itself, doesn't have any logic -- it's the culmination or end result of the logic. When we talk about an argument, we're talking about the overall logic and line of reasoning that culminates in the conclusion. So asking about "an assumption on which the argument depends" (as is often the case on GMAT questions) is no different than asking about the author's reasoning.

The only real difference in this question is that we're zeroing in on a specific part of the argument -- the part about the importance of small, local businesses. That means we don't have to worry about possible assumptions related to the "artificially low online prices" part.

The GMAT (or LSAT) isn't really trying to trick you with semantics. If you've found something that hurts the conclusion, then you've found something that hurts the author's argument.

I hope that helps!
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