Hello, everyone. I see a lot of confusion above in the responses, particularly about answer choice (A), so I thought I would provide a full analysis to hopefully clarify a few points. How about we start with the question?
generis wrote:
For the transportation bureau's plan to succeed in reducing traffic congestion, which of the following must be true?
Notice that the frame of this question adopts the phrase
must be true. You could think of this as a necessary assumption in a different question with that keyword (
assumption) instead. Be careful in these questions not to justify a could-be-true answer. Many people overlook the obvious because they think there has to be some deeper purpose or meaning, but that is not the way standardized tests operate in general, least of all on this type of question.
The passage is easy enough to digest.
generis wrote:
To reduce traffic congestion, City X's transportation bureau plans to encourage people who work downtown to sign a form pledging to carpool or use public transportation for the next year. Everyone who signs the form will get a coupon for a free meal at any downtown restaurant.
Sentence 1 lays out the plan. The transportation bureau wants
people who work downtown to sign a form, one that says they will
carpool or use public transportation for the next year. The
why is spelled out for us in the first few words:
to reduce traffic congestion.
Sentence 2 does not offer any commentary, merely informing us that
everyone who signs the form will get a coupon, one that entitles the bearer to a free meal at
any restaurant in the downtown area.
The linear relationship is as follows—plan: (sign a form = coupon) → reduced traffic congestion. Our answer
must tie into this relationship. (An alternative explanation will not do here.)
generis wrote:
A) Everyone who signs the pledge form will fully abide by the pledge for the next year.
The only information the passage provides about
everyone is that each person who signs the pledge will receive a coupon. Not to be overlooked is the equally absolute
will fully abide by the pledge. What would it mean to partially abide by the pledge? Would workers who opted to get their legs moving on Bike to Work Day fall into this undesirable category? Would
that situation not also potentially
reduce traffic congestion? We are looking for a must-be-true answer, and if, in a pretty unrealistic, happy-go-lucky scenario, 99 percent of all pledges followed through but 1 percent did not (the ones who might have just wanted a free lunch), and traffic congestion were subsequently reduced, would that not also make the plan a success? We should be able to appreciate that these extreme conditions do
not have to hold for the plan to achieve its aim, so we need to keep looking for our answer.
generis wrote:
B) At least some people who work downtown prefer the restaurants downtown to those elsewhere.
This is the right group of people, the target group of the plan, but restaurant preferences have nothing to do with its success. If I worked in the city and packed my lunch everyday to save money, or perhaps because I felt that a homemade meal was more wholesome and healthful than the fare offered at restaurants in general, but I then got a coupon for a free meal at
any downtown restaurant, I might decide to treat myself one day to the free meal or take a friend out. The point is, I could take the coupon regardless of my restaurant preferences, and so might anyone else. As long as pledges stuck to what they pledged to do, the plan could be a success. The coupon is just icing on the cake.
generis wrote:
C) Most downtown traffic congestion in City X results from people who work downtown.
Make every word count, or else you should be skeptical of the answer. We can only speculate whether
most traffic congestion is caused by downtown workers or by journey-workers passing through the city each day to reach their eventual destinations. The goal of the plan is to
reduce traffic congestion, plain and simple. Perhaps there are just more buses and other forms of public transit into the downtown area than there are to other surrounding areas, so the transportation bureau decided to provide an incentive for a proportion of commuters,
some proportion, the one that consists of people who work downtown, to use public transportation or carpool. We have no numbers in hand to qualify
most. Maybe a 30 percent reduction in traffic congestion would be considered a success, and perhaps that very sliver of congestion is currently caused by people who work downtown. It is an extreme case, but a must-be-true question forces us to confront such possibilities, and we have found a loophole.
generis wrote:
D) The most effective way to reduce traffic congestion downtown would be to persuade more people who work there to carpool or use public transportation.
Another superlative in
most, and another answer that is easy to see off for overstepping its bounds. We are not privy to the information behind the decision by the transportation bureau to offer people who work downtown a meal voucher to sign the pledge. It could have been some last-ditch effort to reduce traffic congestion after other potentially better ideas had already failed. We will never know, nor should we be concerned with what
could be the most effective way to address the problem. The bureau proposed a plan. Does that make it the best possible plan by default? I wish such issues could be resolved so simply in real life.
generis wrote:
E) At least some people who receive the coupon for a free meal will sometimes carpool or use public transportation during the next year.
What do you know? The plan that hinges upon people pledging to do something in exchange for a coupon actually requires
some of these people to follow through
sometimes for the plan to succeed. Who would have guessed? Note that we are not trying to find an answer to justify whether the plan
will be successful, only what it would take for
this particular plan, by its very design, to be successful. This is a must-be-true condition, and with the other answers safely out of the way, there is no room for doubt anyway. Choice (E) is our answer.
I hope that helps. If anyone has further questions, I would be happy to offer my thoughts. As always, good luck with your studies.
- Andrew