Board member: "The property crime rate in the city of Stanley is appro

Question

Board member: "The property crime rate in the city of Stanley is approximately 8,000 crimes per year per 100,000 people, while in Crestview it is about 500 and in Yorker it is 600. Stanley is a predominantly low-income city, while Crestview and Yorker are upper-middle-income suburbs. The solution to reducing Stanley’s crime rate, then, is to encourage the opening of new businesses and economic development in the area in order to alleviate poverty.”

The board member assumes that:

(A) Residents of Crestview do not commit property crimes in Stanley.
(B) People who live in poverty are more likely to commit property crime.
(C) New businesses would be less vulnerable to property crimes than existing ones in Stanley.
(D) Property crime does not prompt the flight of wealthy and middling residents.
(E) There is already an adequate police force in the City of Stanley.

Nitisha03 · Answer

OE please. B is the strong contender here. Can someone suggest how D is the best choice?

shreyata · Answer

GMATNinja  can you help? I was confused between b and d and chose b.

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GauravAlugh · Answer

I think B is the right choice, why do you think D is

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sislam04 · Answer

B basically is irrelevant.

If we take this as an assumption, it doesn’t destroy anything. It just says that currently people live in poverty I’m more likely to commit crimes. OK great, my plan is to address poverty by introducing businesses, I don’t care to what degree or what the tendency of the people are.

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Nikhil30 · Answer

kindly note , question doesn't ask you for assumption .
its assume.!!
your explanation is wrong for B.

sudeepmodak · Answer

Anyone from GMAT club please explain y nt B?

Nikhil30 · Answer

hey , i don't have a strong reason to say why D is the correct answer.but i do have strong reason to say why A,B,C and E are wrong.
so the conclusion is :
The solution to reducing Stanley’s crime rate, then, is to encourage the opening of new businesses and economic development in the area in order to alleviate poverty.”

now, if you read the conclusion carefully you will understand only option D is talking about this.
now in option A ,B c and E is totally irrelevant and OOS.

why B is not correct is because: what i feel is , author has given a generalize statement.
there must be other reason why people likely to commit property crime.
hope you understand.

RaevMayfly · Answer

I don't know why B is incorrect. I can explain why D is correct.
D attacks the causal relationship between 'poverty' and 'property crimes'. According to the prompt: Poverty leads to property crimes. Then the argument must have assumed that the opposite is not true i.e. Property crimes led to poverty (rich and middle-income groups leaving the city).
Hence, D is correct. Though I still do not understand why B is incorrect 😅

shubhamjha22 · Answer

My only reason to eliminate B was because an Assumption is new information that is not given in the passage without which the conclusion breaks down. Since this information is given in the passage (implied in it) this isn't the assumption.

however I am not convinced that D is the correct answer either:

Conclusion : (Paraphrased) To reduce PCR (Property Crime rate) we must increase wealth (reduce poverty) in the area.

Option D  
Property crime does not prompt the flight of wealthy and middling residents.

Lets assume this is false i.e 
Yes Property crime does prompt the flight of the wealthy and middling residents.

Does this affect my conclusion in any way? i.e. if middling and wealthy residents leave then can I say that increasing wealth in the area would not reduce PCR. Not necessarily. There could be other ways of wealth creation.

I could also hypothetically argue that with rich people leaving the value of properties will come down (since no buyers) and hence the need to property crime will come down.

Point being it does not necessarily break the conclusion.  As such D doesnt seem like correct answer .

Now my thought process was:
In what scenario would poverty not affect the rising crime?

Answer: If there are other reasons for increased crime rates other than poverty.

Lack of adequate police force seemed like it.

Therefore I chose option E. Though I realize people may argue that this is PCR and hence police force may not affect it etc etc. However given Option B is not new information this seemed like the best option. Definitely better than option D.

Can anyone help with the flaw in my reasoning. Your guidance is much appreciated.

Thanks.

kartikvgupta · Answer

Hey even I have been getting all these questions wrong. Trying to post my reasoning here for the same, pls feel free to correct or challenge if it feels wrong.

Generally in questions like these where lets say A(poverty) is high and B(crime rate) is also high and the argument is suggesting a definite causal relationship between two there are two possibilities A causes B or B causes A. If the argument concludes A causes B then B not causing A is an assumption or vice versa.

Here chosing B is not causing A is safest because this definitely is an assumption. The option can also contain a subset of A is causing B, ( which is not actually A causing B ) and we might be tempted to chose that as I did in this one.

In the context of the question, the argument suggests poverty is causing high crime rate ( high crime rate not high likelihood of crime itself as in option B )

Therefore the assumption is high crime rate is not causing poverty, which is captured in option D as high crime rate by making reach people leave can cause poverty which completely destroys the argument which is based on poverty is causing high crime rate.

Here the B option is a subset of poverty causing high crime rate, as it states poverty causes more people to commit crime. High crime rate doesn't mean people are more likely to commit crime ( can suggest more crimes are being caught or those crimes are being caught which are listed or whatever )
(very subtle point aggh )

That's why I feel its best to pick B not causing A as assumption because it definitely needs to be false.

YashYashkratos · Answer

D) is the clear winner it totally shatters the argument from the very beginning , it states the reason the city has less wealthy or upper class people is they left because of crime.
Note: it does not break argument by saying the businesses will not get more wealth but it breaks it by saying they left because of the crime, clear winner if you understand the difference.
That should clear up most of the doubts in comments.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Board member: "The property crime rate in the city of Stanley is appro

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