There are fewer apartments available for rent in the city than there

Question

There are fewer apartments available for rent in the city than there are recent immigrants looking for apartments. This month, over three thousand immigrants are expected to arrive in the city but two months ago, there were only five hundred apartments that were leased.

Which of the following statements, if true, most strengthens the author’s claim that there are fewer apartments available for rent than there are recent immigrants looking for apartments?

A. The immigrant population is rising significantly over the past few years.
B. The number of apartments leased last months is greater than the number of apartments leased two months ago.
C. The number of apartments leased in a month is generally approximately equal to the number of apartments available for lease.
D. The lease contract of a big chunk of houses is supposed to end this month.
E. Immigrants stay long enough in an apartment to continue the lease into the next year, reducing the number of apartments available for rent the next year.

This is a  CR Butler Question

Check the links to other Butler Projects: 
 
   Data Sufficiency Butler 
   Problem Solving Butler  
   Sentence Correction Butler  
   Reading Comprehension Butler  
   Integrated Reasoning Butler

wadhwakaran · Answer

A. The immigrant population is rising significantly over the past few years.  Does not help the argument.

B. The number of apartments leased last months is greater than the number of apartments leased two months ago.  Weakens the conclusion as it in a sense says that there are flats to accommodate the immigrants.

C. The number of apartments leased in a month is generally approximately equal to the number of apartments available for lease.  Irrelevant

D. The lease contract of a big chunk of houses is supposed to end this month.  Weakens the conclusion

E. Immigrants stay long enough in an apartment to continue the lease into the next year, reducing the number of apartments available for rent the next year.  Correct as it says the flat leased in the last two months are not going to be vacated till the next year.

Bunuel · Answer

Experts' Global Video Explanation:

Djz0R4K_KwY

anish777 · Answer

Hi  Bunuel , the correct option states that the number of flats leased is generally equal to the availability of flats for lease. This question stem presents a data for an earlier month. It is difficult to predict from there whether immigrants will face a problem in the coming month. 
Rather option E strengthens the point better according to me.
Kindly answer where I am going wrong here?

Aabiyeh · Answer

Hi, I was confused between C and E. Can you please help me understand which one is right and why?

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Aabiyeh

The official answer is C. (If you look at the end of Bunuel's original post, there's an option to "Show Answer.")

Honestly, this isn't a great CR. While it's true that the arguments in assumption-based CR are always flawed, this one barely holds together at all. It just cites a random statistic about the number of leases last month, and from this the author jumps to a conclusion about the total number of apartments available now. Perhaps this is why folks are getting drawn to an answer like E, which doesn't really have much connection to the author's argument. It's kind of hard to know what we're expected to look for!

Having said all that, C is a definite strengthener. If the # of apartments leased is usually about the same as the # available--in other words, if not many apartments are left unleased--then the low number of leases two months ago may be an indicator of low availability now. The argument still isn't great--what if many more apartments have become available since then?--but at least it gives us a connection between the premise and conclusion. Without C, the argument doesn't make much sense at all. It would be like saying that I don't have much money now because I didn't spend very much two months ago.

As for E, it has no relevance, because it's talking about what effect these immigrants will have on FUTURE apartment availability. That's not what the argument is about, and besides, if there isn't room for these folks to find apartments, then why would this even matter? We might also imagine that this has happened in the past, but we'd just be imagining. There's no mention of any previous waves of immigrants, and besides, there's no reason to suspect that immigrants fill up the housing market any more than anyone else. At any given time, surely there are many people living long-term in apartments. So what? We just want to know if there are 3,000 empty ones, and we still have no idea!

Haffun · Answer

Some of us have asked why isn't E right. Update:"I have an explanation why it is not the right answer."
If you look at the last line of the passage, it says, "there were only five hundred apartments that were leased."
This doesn't tell us whether there are apartments still left to lease. If 500 out of 4000 apartments are leased, there are enough apartments for the 3k immigrants expected to arrive. Anything that fills this gap in the conclusion will strengthen this. Update:"And that's answ C."

Even if the current 500 apartments leased will be vacated in the next year, the 3.5k vacant apartments are up for lease as per the example I took in my previous para.

Posted from my mobile device

DmitryFarberMPrep · Answer

Haffun

You're absolutely right that we need to know whether there are additional apartments available. However, E doesn't tell us anything about this one way or another. It just says that immigrants stay in their apartments for a while. That doesn't tell us whether apartments will be available or not. For instance, most people in my neighborhood stay in their homes for decades. That doesn't tell you whether there are many homes for sale or not. Maybe many of those people happen to be leaving this year, or maybe everyone just moved in and will be here for a while.

In this immigrant example, we just don't know enough about the CURRENT renters of apartments, or the NEAR FUTURE renters, to make any use of the idea that immigrants stay a while. Perhaps everyone else stays a while, too. But there still could be 10,000 empty apartments, or there could be none.

Ved22 · Answer

No Dude, it does not. Consider an use case , wherein the people continuing the lease or the no of apartments areonly 5 , of 20, so left 15 are a big chuck available

VerbalBot · Answer

Automated notice from GMAT Club VerbalBot:

A member just gave Kudos to this thread, showing it’s still useful. I’ve bumped it to the top so more people can benefit. Feel free to add your own questions or solutions.

This post was generated automatically.

There are fewer apartments available for rent in the city than there

Prep Toolkit

Top 5 GMAT Debrief Videos

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards

GMAT Critical Reasoning (CR) Questions

There are fewer apartments available for rent in the city than there

Prep Toolkit

615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

More than Quant/Verbal Abilities: Speed vs. Accuracy

745 with Only Self-Prep and GMAT Club

From 555 to 765: 210-point Improvement

Perfect 805 Score Debrief by Julia

My Rewards