To improve the town’s overcrowded school system, the town council has

Question

Competition Mode Question

To improve the town’s overcrowded school system, the town council has proposed an ambitious education plan to reduce classroom size and make capital improvements—a plan they intend to pay for with an increase in property taxes for homes valued over $500,000. Although the school system desperately needs improving, the town council’s plan should be defeated because the majority of the people who would end up paying for the improvements receive no benefit from them.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?

(A) The town’s school system is currently ranked among the worst in the state.

(B) Other towns nearby that have made similar capital improvements did not find that the improvements translated to a better quality of education.

(C) The town will need to spend additional money on architect’s plans for the capital improvements.

(D) An examination of the tax rolls shows that most homeowners in this category no longer have school-age children.

(E) Some homeowners will delay home improvement projects in order to keep the value of their homes below $500,000.

eakabuah · Answer

The right answer is D.

Premise: To improve the town’s overcrowded school system, the town council has proposed an ambitious education plan to reduce classroom size and make capital improvements—a plan they intend to pay for with an increase in property taxes for homes valued over $500,000.
Counter-premise: the majority of the people who would end up paying for the improvements receive no benefit from them.
Conclusion: the town council’s plan should be defeated.

To strengthen this argument, we need an answer choice that suggests that most of the people whose homes are valued over $500,000 do not send their children to the schools in the town. Scanning through the answer choices, only D states that an examination of the tax rolls shows that most homeowners in this category no longer have school-age children. If this is true, then the argument is greatly strengthened.

Leadership · Answer

Pre-thinking : The majority of the people would not be benefited by schools improvement unless they have their children to go into the schools. (A) The town’s school system is currently ranked among the worst in the state. - Nothing to do with the argument . Easy Out 1

(B) Other towns nearby that have made similar capital improvements did not find that the improvements translated to a better quality of education. - The argument is to reduce the over crowded situation and not to get better quality education. Also, the other town info. is not relevant. Easy Out 2

(C) The town will need to spend additional money on architect’s plans for the capital improvements. - - Nothing to do with the argument . Easy Out 3

(D) An examination of the tax rolls shows that most homeowners in this category no longer have school-age children. - Yes, why would they be interested to pay additional tax if they do not have school-age children. Winner

(E) Some homeowners will delay home improvement projects in order to keep the value of their homes below $500,000. - The argument is asking to get a benefit relation between addition tax and school and not to save the tax for any reason. Easy Out 4

Archit3110 · Answer

conclusion:Although the school system desperately needs improving, the town council’s plan should be defeated because the majority of the people who would end up paying for the improvements receive no benefit from them
IMO D An examination of the tax rolls shows that most homeowners in this category no longer have school-age children

To improve the town’s overcrowded school system, the town council has proposed an ambitious education plan to reduce classroom size and make capital improvements—a plan they intend to pay for with an increase in property taxes for homes valued over $500,000. Although the school system desperately needs improving, the town council’s plan should be defeated because the majority of the people who would end up paying for the improvements receive no benefit from them.

Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?

(A) The town’s school system is currently ranked among the worst in the state.

(B) Other towns nearby that have made similar capital improvements did not find that the improvements translated to a better quality of education.

(C) The town will need to spend additional money on architect’s plans for the capital improvements.

(D) An examination of the tax rolls shows that most homeowners in this category no longer have school-age children.

(E) Some homeowners will delay home improvement projects in order to keep the value of their homes below $500,000.

exc4libur · Answer

ARGUMENT
  To improve the system, town plans to tax houses over $500k to reduce sizes and make improvements;
  The plan will be defeated because the majority taxed won't receive any benefit from this.

STRENGTHEN
(A) irrelevant;
(B) irrelevant;
(C) irrelevant;
(E) some will delay, but not all; irrelevant.

Ans (D)  if they have no more kids to attend school, then this strengthens the conclusion.

unraveled · Answer

To improve the town’s overcrowded school system, the town council has proposed an ambitious education plan to reduce classroom size and make capital improvements—a plan they intend to pay for with an increase in property taxes for homes valued over $500,000. Although the school system desperately needs improving, the town council’s plan should be defeated because the majority of the people who would end up paying for the improvements receive no benefit from them.
Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the argument above?

(A) The town’s school system is currently ranked among the worst in the state.

(B) Other towns nearby that have made similar capital improvements did not find that the improvements translated to a better quality of education.

(C) The town will need to spend additional money on architect’s plans for the capital improvements.

(D) An examination of the tax rolls shows that most homeowners in this category no longer have school-age children.

(E) Some homeowners will delay home improvement projects in order to keep the value of their homes below $500,000.

As per D homeowners with homes valued over $500,000 would pay taxes that would result in capital improvement. However, there would be no effect in class size sine they don't have school going children.

IMO Answer D.

sam9312 · Answer

Revamping the education plan needs Capital.
Capital to be acquired from increase in taxes of houses valued above 500k

Conclusion: won't work, people in this category won't benefit.

(D) says exactly this people in this category don't have school going childrean. Hence, no benefit.

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Bunuel · Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The author is arguing to nix the plan to improve the schools. We want to strengthen his argument, but before we do, there is usually at least one answer choice that actually weakens the argument. It is helpful to get rid of these first, since they are usually easier to spot.

In this case, choice (A) gives a compelling reason to improve the school system; eliminate it. Now, the reason the author gives for defeating the plan is that the people who pay for it will not benefit. To strengthen this argument, we need to show why this would be true.

Choice (B) is against the school improvements, but for a different reason: in other towns, similar improvements didn’t increase the quality of education. While important in the real world, this is slightly outside the scope of this argument.

Choice (C) provides another possible negative of the plan, but again it doesn’t show why the people who pay for it will not benefit.

Choice (E) implies that taxpayers will delay their own capital improvements to avoid paying for the schools’ capital improvements, but again this doesn’t strengthen the author’s particular argument— that the plan should be defeated because the people who must pay for it do not benefit.

The best answer is (D), which explains how this could be true: Most of the people slotted to pay for the school improvements don’t even have school-age children.

Bunuel · Answer

Twin question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/to-improve-t ... 12893.html

VerbalBot · Answer

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To improve the town’s overcrowded school system, the town council has

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