Bunuel wrote:
The state of California recently adopted legislation that requires bars and restaurants to ban smoking inside their establishments unless the restaurants have a separate room with separate heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that can be designated as a smoking room. Sports bars that do not already have rooms with separate HVAC systems need to construct them in order to accommodate patrons who wish to smoke or the lack of a smoking room will cause these bars to go out of business.
Which of the following, if true, would most strengthen the argument above?
A. Smoking patrons care enough about being able to smoke in a sports bar that they would leave bars without smoking rooms in favor of those with smoking rooms in large enough numbers to drive the bars without smoking rooms out of business.
B. Employees of sports bars without smoking rooms are known to smoke outside during breaks and patrons are welcome to do the same without breaking the law.
C. Most patrons of the average sports bar do not smoke anyway and will shy away from bars that do have smoking rooms.
D. The new smoking legislation should provide equal protection from any hazards associated with smoking to all patrons of restaurants and bars.
E. To construct a new smoking room, bars will need all the proper construction licenses, a certified contractor, and a plan from an architect. Construction time will take at least three months for the average bar.
Official Explanation
The words "would most strengthen the argument" indicate that this is a Strengthen question. The correct choice will make it more likely that the conclusion follows from the stated evidence.
The author's conclusion is that sports bars without rooms for smokers need to construct them or they will end up going out of business. The evidence is that the new law requires bars to ban smoking if they don't have a room with a separate HVAC system for smokers.
The author must be assuming smokers care enough about smoking that they would stop coming to the sports bars if they couldn't smoke, and that these smokers make up a significant enough part of the sports bar business that the bars would have to go out of business without these customers. The correct choice will shore up the author's assumption. It will suggest that smokers really would stop coming to the sports bars if they can't smoke, and that there are enough of them to drive the sports bars out of business.
(A) matches the prediction and is correct.
(B) just says the smokers can go outside the smoke. But they've always been able to go outside to smoke. (B) has nothing to do with the argument, which is about the new requirement and the sports bars going out of business.
(C) is a 180, as it attacks the author's assumption. If most sports bar patrons are not smokers, and will stay away from bars that do have smoking rooms, then the sports bars will not go out of business by not building a room. On the contrary, they might do more damage to their business by actually building a room.
(D) is concerned only with the hazards of smoking and not with whether sports bars that don't build a smoking room will go out of business.
(E) describes what is involved in building a smoking room. Whatever is involved, it doesn't make it more likely that the sports bars who don't build the room will go out of business.