Chinmay1998 wrote:
Hello,
I have the same doubt as most of the people who've posted. Option A) just restates what is already mentioned in the passage. Whereas option B) gives us a reason to believe that budget is not the only concern for vacationers and something else like view, or proximity to an event venue etc is the reason for them to prefer the suburbs. Please shed some more light on why A) and not B) is the correct answer.
Hello,
Chinmay1998. I understand the confusion, but if you read the passage and answer (A) carefully, you will appreciate that they do
not say the same thing. Yes, we glean from the passage that
most suburban hotels... are overbooked, in contrast to roughly 3,000 rooms in hotels
in the downtown area that are still not booked, and the conclusion does indeed point to a preference among travelers for
low-budget hotels. But how are we in a position to qualify whether the
downtown vacancies are in low-budget or high-budget hotels? For an extreme example, we could think of all 3,000 rooms or so belonging to some run-down district in the downtown area, undesirable to vacationers because of the location and, perhaps, the relatively higher prices for ease of access to the city. Choice (A), then, becomes a necessary assumption:
Skyline393 wrote:
A. Most of the overbooked suburban hotels cost lower than the downtown hotels
Because the stimulus concerns
most suburban hotels, we are in a position to find an assumption pertaining to most suburban hotels, and if the conclusion indicates that travelers prefer
low-budget hotels, then we have to assume that rooms in
most of the overbooked hotels must cost less than their urban counterparts, low-budget or not.
As for choice (B), a
preference of low-budget hotels in the conclusion from the passage does not mean the same as an
exclusive preference for low-budget hotels:
the only concern is overstated. Again, there could be low-budget hotels in the city for all we know. Although I agree that (B) presents a could-be-true situation, within an assumption framework, you have to find the must-be-true instead. Choice (B) fails to deliver to that end.
I hope that helps. If you have further questions, I would be happy to address them. Good luck with your studies.
- Andrew
Alright, got it... This was indeed a tricky one! Thank you so much for the quick response.