Businessperson: Because the parking area directly in front of the

Question

Businessperson: Because the parking area directly in front of the building was closed for maintenance today, I was late to my meeting If the maintenance had been done on a different day, I would have gotten to the meeting on time. After finding out that I could not park in that area it took me 15 minutes to find an available parking space, making me a few minutes late.

The answer to which one of the following questions would be most useful to know in order to evaluate the reasoning in the businessperson's argument?

(A) What were the reasons for performing maintenance on the parking area directly in front of the building on that particular day?

(B) Were any other of the meeting attendees also late to the meeting because they had difficulty finding parking?

(C) What are the parking patterns in the building's vicinity on days when the parking area in front of the building is open?

(D) Does the businessperson have a tendency to be late to meetings?

(E) Was it particularly important that the businessperson not be late to this meeting?

PT78 S3 Q23

Sakshi2013 · Accepted Answer

I am sharing my reasoning below - 
Option B suggests, "Were any other of the meeting attendees also late to the meeting because they had difficulty finding parking?" If we select this, we assume that other meeting attendees were parking in the  same  parking lot, which our guys say was closed on D-day. However, the premise doesn't mention that. The premise talks only about the reason our guy is giving for his delay.

Evaluate option B - "There were other meeting attendees who were delayed because they couldn't find the parking space." - which parking zone were they going to park in? (we don't know that). Hence, it doesn't affect the argument.

Now, coming to the premise—when our guys say, "I was late to my meeting. If the maintenance had been done on a different day, I would have gotten to the meeting on time." Here, he is assuming that if there had been no maintenance, he could have easily gotten a parking space. Maybe he has a reserved spot there; we don't know.

So, to evaluate this, let's consider option C - "What are the parking patterns in the building's vicinity on days when the parking area in front of the building is open?" if we know the details of this, we could be able to comprehend what our guy suggests is correct or misleading. This option will help us understand the parking pattern on regular days. Hence, this is the correct answer. I hope this helps.

mrfrantic · Answer

Can anyone explain why B is not an answer?

Contropositive · Answer

I don't think (B) is remotely relevant.
Maybe other guys knew about the maintenance and planned their timings accordingly, but our guy didn't know.
OR maybe, other guys get reserved parking for themselves. Maybe other guys paid bribe to maintenace guys to let them park illegally?

There can be n-reasons that other guys didn't get late but our guys did.

nikitathegreat · Answer

GMATNinja  &  KarishmaB  - Can you explain why D is incorrect? What if the person is generally late for the meetings and hence this was one of the mechanism for him to lie. Or are we generalising too much by saying that since he is generally late for the meetings, this was one of his excuses? The real crux is that we see that parking patterns and then form an opinion about it ? Can you also tell me why C is correct - if we derive parking patterns of the nearby place when the parking space infront of the building is open, what inference can we draw of the nearby parking space when the parking space infront of the building is closed? 
 Scenarios  
Are we saying that if there is a lot of space in the nearby area if the parking space infront of the building is open then there will be very less space in the nearby area when parking space infront of the building is closed.

Thanks

MartyMurray · Answer

Businessperson: Because the parking area directly in front of the building was closed for maintenance today, I was late to my meeting. If the maintenance had been done on a different day, I would have gotten to the meeting on time. After finding out that I could not park in that area it took me 15 minutes to find an available parking space, making me a few minutes late.

The conclusion of the argument is the following:

Because the parking area directly in front of the building was closed for maintenance today, I was late to my meeting If the maintenance had been done on a different day, I would have gotten to the meeting on time.

We see that there are two aspects to the businessperson's conclusion: one of them is the point that the maintenance caused the businessperson to be late, and the second is the point that, if the maintenance had not been going on that day, the businessperson would have been on time.

The support for the conclusion is the following:

After finding out that I could not park in that area it took me 15 minutes to find an available parking space, making me a few minutes late.

The businessperson's reasoning is that, since finding a parking space took 15 minutes and the businessperson was only a few minutes late, the closure of the area in front of the building made the businessperson late, and the businessperson would not have been late if the maintenance had not been going on.

One aspect of the argument that we may notice is that it jumps from the fact that the businessperson had to search for parking for 15 minutes to the conclusion that the maintenance is what made the businessperson late.

The answer to which one of the following questions would be most useful to know in order to evaluate the reasoning in the businessperson's argument?

This is an Evaluate the Argument question, and the correct answer will be the choice such that a possible answer to the question the choice poses will weaken or strengthen the argument.

(A) What were the reasons for performing maintenance on the parking area directly in front of the building on that particular day?

Information on the reasons for the maintenance would not indicate whether the maintenance caused the businessperson to be late.

Eliminate.

(B) Were any other of the meeting attendees also late to the meeting because they had difficulty finding parking?

This choice is tricky to eliminate. At the same time, we can eliminate it through seeing that, regardless of whether other people had difficulty finding parking, the businessperson had difficulty finding parking.

So, the answer to this question would not change what we know about the businessperson's situation.

Eliminate.

(C) What are the parking patterns in the building's vicinity on days when the parking area in front of the building is open?

This choice is interesting.

After all, if the parking patterns are such that all spaces in the area in front of the building are normally taken around the time of the meeting, then the businessperson would have been late for the meeting even if the maintenance had not been going on that day.

So, if the answer to this choice is that all spaces in the area in front of the building are normally taken around that time, that information weakens the argument.

On the other hand, if the answer to this choice is that, normally, there are many open spaces in that area, that information tends to confirm the conclusion that the businessperson would have been on time if the maintenance had been done on a different day.

Since possible answers to this question weaken or strengthen the argument, this choice is the correct answer.

Keep.

(D) Does the businessperson have a tendency to be late to meetings?

This choice is tricky to eliminate, partly because this choice may remind us of real-life situations in which a person has a tendency to be late and tends to blame lateness on something new each time when in fact the person is late basically because the person does not leave enough time.

At the same time, we can eliminate this choice by realizing that, regardless of whether the businessperson has a tendency to be late to meetings, it remains the case that the businessperson did have to search for parking for 15 minutes. So, it could be the case that the maintenance caused the businessperson to be late and that the businessperson would have been on time if the maintenance had been done on a different day.

Eliminate.

(E) Was it particularly important that the businessperson not be late to this meeting?

Information on how important it was for the businessperson not to be late would not indicate what caused the businessperson to be late.

Eliminate.

Correct answer:   C

Businessperson: Because the parking area directly in front of the

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