V03-41

Question

A developer wants to build a shopping mall in a mostly rural area of a mid-sized city. In the letter to the city council requesting a building permit, the developer argues that the permit should be granted because the shopping mall, if successful, will ultimately benefit the city by creating jobs in a place where the unemployment rate is slightly higher than the national average.
 
Which of the following, if true, will be most helpful in strengthening the developer’s petition before the city council?

A. A citizens’ group has circulated a petition collecting signatures in support of the developer’s plan.
B. The city code requires that proposals for all new structures be voted upon and approved by the city council.
C. The developer has already obtained verbal agreements from several retailers who plan to open stores in the future shopping mall.
D. The city’s largest percentage of unemployed people lives in the rural area where the proposed shopping mall would be built.
E. The city will benefit financially from the new shopping mall, because all sales tax revenues will go to the city.

Bunuel · Answer

Official Solution:

A developer wants to build a shopping mall in a mostly rural area of a mid-sized city. In the letter to the city council requesting a building permit, the developer argues that the permit should be granted because the shopping mall, if successful, will ultimately benefit the city by creating jobs in a place where the unemployment rate is slightly higher than the national average.
 
Which of the following, if true, will be most helpful in strengthening the developer’s petition before the city council?

A. A citizens’ group has circulated a petition collecting signatures in support of the developer’s plan.
B. The city code requires that proposals for all new structures be voted upon and approved by the city council.
C. The developer has already obtained verbal agreements from several retailers who plan to open stores in the future shopping mall.
D. The city’s largest percentage of unemployed people lives in the rural area where the proposed shopping mall would be built.
E. The city will benefit financially from the new shopping mall, because all sales tax revenues will go to the city.

Situation: A developer seeking permission to build a shopping mall argues that the mall will create jobs in an area where unemployment is high.
 
 Reasoning:   Which option will most strengthen the developer’s petition?  The developer’s letter to the city council focuses on the benefits available to the city if the mall is constructed. The city will benefit if those currently unemployed begin working and spending money to increase the city’s tax base. The correct answer will follow the line of reasoning that the mall will be of benefit to the city.
 
A. This may demonstrate that local residents support the mall, but it does not necessarily aid the developer’s position before the city council. 
 
B. City building codes are not relevant to the discussion of whether a new shopping mall will benefit the city financially.
 
C. This may boost confidence in the potential success of the shopping mall, but it does not help prove the argument that the shopping mall will create jobs in the area where unemployment rate is higher than average. It just does not work if you think about it. This option does not tell us anything about job creation, location, or really much anything. 
 If you are still not convinced, consider this: having a few retailers verbally agree is not an indication of job creation. How would we link job creation and verbal retailer agreements? It would require some assumptions and a spreadsheet, but let's assume you can link it, but even in that case, some malls may have hundreds of retailers and some many have a few. This could be one of those big malls and so it is not possible to evaluate how much a few retailers mean in terms of rent. OK, let's say this is a small mall because we are just determined to make this answer choice work, but what if the owner of the future mall offered these retailers an unreasonably low rate for the first year? It can still go out of business in year 2 or it can still go out of business in year 3 due to a financial crisis. This answer choice creates more holes in the argument than a strainer. Try to compare the choice to the argument stated and see if it works or if it covers just one small case. 
 
 D. CORRECT.  This strengthens the developer's petition because of potential reduction of unemployment rate.
 
E. This answer choice, though provides a good argument, falls outside of the scope of the original statement.

Answer: D

harDill · Answer

i don’t get c and d
the argument is based on ‘if successful’
even if d were assumed to be true we cannot say that they will get job without success of the mall 
 according to me as c provides reason for success we shd go with it

DML88 · Answer

C sounds better to me. Imagine the situation where the mall is building, but no store is open. This situation will not change the unemployment rate.

Icecream87 · Answer

C definately sounds better to me too

srishtigrover · Answer

Isn't D already mentioned in the passage that the unemployment rate is higher than the average rate? Also, I think the strongest claim should be the one which persuades the city council the most i.e. a statement which directly benefits the city, and the best answer thus becomes E.

srishtigrover · Answer

Also, it cannot be C because the city council would not care about the interest of all the potential store owners who have agreed to open their stores in the mall.

sayantanc2k · Answer

Consider the following reasoning chain:

P----> C (premise leads to conclusion)

A strengthening statement should support this chain. If there is another premise P1 that would lead to conclusion then that premise would be either out of context or could even weaken the above chain.

Now come to the subject question:

P= high unemployment rate in rural area
C = open shopping mall in rural area (to reduce unemployment)

Option E introduces a different premise P1 altogether: P1= increase tax revenue for the city. This new P1 does not strengthen the chain P--->C. It may be a solid reason to reach C (i.e. a new chain P1----> C), but that does not help the argument in the passage (i.e. P----->C).

srishtigrover · Answer

All right, I understand now. But if it were a find the assumption question, would the latter option be the correct in that case?

This is what I have learned in summation:

- For strengthen the argument questions: The answer is something which supports the conclusion basis the info present in the passage.
- For weaken the argument questions: The answer is something that either goes in the opposite direction of what is mentioned or gives a third reason for the same.
- For assumption questions: The answer is something that supports the argument in addition to what is given in the passage.

Please let me know if my understanding is legitimate. 
Thank you in advance.

Rushilkhera · Answer

It is a close call between C and D. But I would definitely go with D because that is the only point that is stating that it would be made in largest unemployed area. Which will ultimately help them. As far as C goes verbal agreement is not confirmed.

sayantanc2k · Answer

I would slightly tweak your statements as follows:
- For weaken the argument questions: The answer   could be  something that either goes in the opposite direction of what is mentioned or gives a third reason for the same.
- For strengthen the argument questions: The answer is something which supports the conclusion basis the info present in the passage.  Consider these statements the other side of the coin: the negative of the above statements are strengthening statements, i.e. The answer could be something that either confirms that the logic does not go in the opposite direction of what is mentioned or confirms that there is NOT a third reason for the same. 
- For assumption questions: The answer is something that supports the argument in addition to what is given in the passage  and that fills up a gap between the premise and the conclusion.

Considering the above, option E would not be correct even if the question were a find-the-assumption type because option E does not fill up a gap between P and C - it just introduces P1 (a different premise), which is not a bridge between P and C.

Vishal Kumar · Answer

I am not very confidant with the explanation.

Even if the mall is build in the area where most of the unemployed people live, but this does not explain how the mall will create jobs for these people or revenue for the state.

At least the last option is linked in some way that state will benefit.

sayantanc2k · Answer

The argument is that the project   will ultimately benefit the city by creating jobs.   Any other benefit (such as sales tax benefit etc.) is not relevant to the argument, and hence option E is irrelevant.

Option D is the best answer since the developer claims that the shopping mall will create jobs   in a place where the unemployment rate is slightly higher than the national average.   It is required that site selected for the mall should be at an area where unemployment is high. Thus option D is the best answer.

Miracles86 · Answer

I've marked C and I do am confident that it is the right answer for one simple reason:

Even if the shopping mall opens in the area of the city where the unemployment rate is the highest, what guarantee do we have that the job positions generated by the mall will be filled by the residents of that same neighborhood? Isn't it AT LEAST possible that these positions will be filled mostly by people from another area of the city? Yes... so D doesn't do much to strengthen the argument, since the area of the city where the shopping will be constructed is pretty much irrelevant. What is relevant is the impact of the construction of the mall in the employment of the city as a whole, which has an employment rate bellow the national average.

However, if the developer has already obtained verbal agreements from retailers who will open stores at the mall this will increase the belief (considering that the verbal agreements will indeed happen) that the purpose of the construction of the shopping mall, ie to create new jobs, will be fulfilled and hence it indeed works as a strengthener...

Now consider the negation of option (D) and let's see if it breaks the conclusion:

the city's largest percentage of unemployed people does not live in the area where the shopping would be built.

Does this mean that the construction of the mall won't have a positive impact on the city's unemployment rate? No! It will create jobs and hence reduce unemployment.

Now if we negate option (C) we won't break the conclusion as well but considering the golden rule of gmat of always selecting the best choice, I think (C) does more to increase the belief in the success of the plan, rather than (D).

Hope it added value to the discussion!

Cheers from Portugal to y'all GMATers around the world!

TBT · Answer

Is D strong enough to be the answer? Not sure.
Marked E because it benefitted the city. What is the gurantee of reduction in unployment from d?

sumitgupta93 · Answer

I think the option D is already given in the question itself. How can it be an additional strengthening information? C sounds more promising as it indicates success potential of the mall (though verbal).

krishi_22 · Answer

I think this is a  high-quality  question and I don't agree with the explanation. D doesn't create jobs if the developer can't sell the shops to business owners . The business owners will not prefer to start their businesses in areas of high unemployment because there wont be any potential revenue . Therefore , the number of jobs will not increase even if the mall is built .

bb · Answer

Very good thinking - you are definition on to something but it is a bit outside of the scope. Here are a few exmples:
 
 We do not know the size of the shopping mall (may be huge or may be small) 
 We do not know what kind of stores will be in the shopping mall - maybe it is the ones that caters to people on unemployment. It is really an assumption in an assumption assuming that if a town has an area with high enemployment, no shop owners will rent space.  
 Finally, someone could argue that the shopping mall could be a start of revitalization of the area (e.g. See Detroit for example)  
Ultimately there are many ways the story can unfold. We don't know which way it will go - the business owner may go bankrupt or they may prosper. We don't know and we don't have to know - we can just say that it is outside of scope and not worry about it. However, as a high-level business thinker, i think you are definitely onto something.

TanyaBhargava · Answer

I think this is a  high-quality  question and the explanation isn't clear enough, please elaborate. I was torn between c and d, and many people in the forum also seem to feel the same way. i also feel this is a hard level question.

bb · Answer

Thank you for the question. I have expanded the explanation for C. I hope it helps to illustrate the weakness of that choice. I have gone a bit far but I wanted to sort of take it 3 levels down and demonstrate that the choice keeps failing. This answer choice uses the concept of rather than addressing an argument, it isolates a specific scenario (mall will be successful) but ignores all others. In reality however, we are not concerned with financial success of the mall - you cannot guarantee future financial success. if the choice said the mall will fail, then it is a problem but all this answer choice is giving us in terms of information is that, perhaps this mall will have a chance and it will not go out of business because of lack of tenants. Great. It may still go out of business due to being in the floodplanes, lack of customers, financial crisis, etc. Anyway, see the full explanation in the second post please. This is NOT the explanation I was referring to

P.S. If you keep getting caught in traps like these, consider trying to answer the question in your own words first. That will make your answers much more immute to being tempted by options like these. This is a medium level difficulty.

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