Rent rates being exorbitant in New Avenue, an IT hub, a movie hall own

Question

Rent rates being exorbitant in New Avenue, an IT hub, a movie hall owner argues that recovering even the business costs from a theatre in New Avenue would be impossible, let alone making a profit from it. At the usual ticket prices, a theatre in New Avenue would need, on an average, 50% occupancy rate for 75% of all daily shows to just about cover all its costs. His theatre in the Shopping Arcade gets on average just 35% occupancy for all shows in any given day.

Which of the following statements provides the best support for the movie hall owner’s argument?

A.Being located in the heart of the city, New Avenue is a popular commercial center, making the rental of any building or land an expensive affair in that area.

B.Owners of movie halls in New Avenue were able to keep their businesses profitable before economic boom skyrocketed the rent rates in the surrounding areas.

C.Continuous failure to recover the business costs would send the movie hall owner into significant debts, forcing him to sell off the movie hall.

D.Significantly more number of professionals at IT hubs are not more likely to frequent a theatre in the vicinity than the general public at the arcade.

E.The number of daily shows at New Avenue will not be higher than the number of daily shows at Shopping Arcade location.

shridhar786 · Answer

Rent rates being exorbitant in New Avenue, an IT hub, a movie hall owner argues that recovering even the business costs from a theatre in New Avenue would be impossible
-- At the usual ticket prices, a theatre in New Avenue would need, on average, 50% occupancy rate for 75% of all daily shows to just about cover all its costs. 
-- His theatre in the Shopping Arcade gets on average just 35% occupancy for all shows on any given day.

by saying this author assumes that the occupancy rate of a movie hall in New Avenue will not increase

A.  Being located in the heart of the city, New Avenue is a popular commercial center, making the rental of any building or land an expensive affair in that area. 
this does not address our concern --this does not say anything about recovering the business cost in a new avenue--this is general fact
this cant be the strengthener  (incorrect)

B.  Owners of movie halls in New Avenue were able to keep their businesses profitable before economic boom skyrocketed the rent rates in the surrounding areas. 
---we are not concerned whether Owners of movie halls in New Avenue were able to keep their businesses profitable before economic boom skyrocketed the rent rates
--we are talking of the current situation that prices are so high that recovering even the business cost would be impossible 
---this answer choice does not say anything about the current situation  (incorrect)

C.   Continuous failure to recover the business costs would send the movie hall owner into significant debts, forcing him to sell off the movie hall.
 
--this cant be the strengthener since this talks about what movie hall owners will do after continuous failure to recover the business cost
--we are concerned of movie hall owner’s argument that recovering even the business costs from a theatre in New Avenue would be impossible
---we have to provide support to this argument ---this answer choice does not support the argument  (incorrect)

D.  Significantly more number of professionals at IT hubs are not more likely to frequent a theatre in the vicinity than the general public at the arcade.
 
---if more number of professionals at IT hubs are not more likely to frequent a theatre in the vicinity than the general public at the arcade, than the theater will not reach the desired occupancy rate and it will be impossible to recover the business cost 
---this strengthen the movie hall owner’s argument  (correct)

E.  The number of daily shows at New Avenue will not be higher than the number of daily shows at Shopping Arcade location. 
---we are not concerned about the number of daily shows we are concerned about their occupancy rates that determine profit
---this answer choice does not say anything about occupancy rates  (incorrect)

Skywalker18 · Answer

a movie hall owner argues that recovering even the business costs from a theatre in New Avenue would be impossible, let alone making a profit from it- Is this the conclusion.
 At the usual ticket prices, a theatre in New Avenue would need, on an average, 50% occupancy rate for 75% of all daily shows to just about cover all its costs.-- this provides us the statistics for breaking-even.

Can anyone please provide a solution to this question?

AjiteshArun  ,  GMATNinja  ,  MagooshExpert  ,  GMATGuruNY  ,  VeritasPrepBrian  ,  MartyTargetTestPrep  ,  DmitryFarber  ,  VeritasKarishma  ,  generis  , other experts - please enlighten

VeritasPrepBrian · Answer

The grammar is a little weird with it but (D) is the right answer and a good lesson in understanding what we'd call "wordplay" or scope shift. Notice that the attendance/revenue data in the stimulus is about a completely different location (the Shopping Arcade) than the conclusion is about (New Avenue). Those two are not the same thing! The huge gap in logic here is that we're trying to predict attendance on New Avenue based on the low attendance rates in the Shopping Arcade. If you see that that's the gap, you should be looking for an answer that shows that New Avenue's attendance numbers are not likely to be any different from the Shopping Arcade.

(D) supplies that by saying essentially that attendance isn't likely to be significantly higher on New Avenue than at the Shopping Arcade. It makes the data we're given about a totally different context relevant to the context we need, so it fills the big gap of "the data is about something different from the conclusion."

(D) supplies that by saying essentially that attendance isn't likely to be significantly higher on New Avenue than at the Shopping Arcade. It makes the data we're given about a totally different context relevant to the context we need, so it fills the big gap of "the data is about something different from the conclusion."

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Rent rates being exorbitant in New Avenue, an IT hub, a movie hall own

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