The advent of low-cost freight and shipping has allowed businesses to

Question

The advent of low-cost freight and shipping has allowed businesses to locate closer to areas ideal for human resources - places where talented people live or want to live - and farther from areas that provide them their most important natural resources. Take the example of Allied Iron Works, which recently moved its operations from Eastern Pennsylvania to San Francisco.

Which of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

A) More people want to live in San Francisco than in Eastern Pennsylvania.
B) Allied Iron Works' most important natural resources cannot be found near San Francisco.
C) It is not cheaper for a company to run its operations from San Francisco than from Eastern Pennsylvania.
D) No iron companies other than Allied Iron Works are located in San Francisco.
E) Fewer people live in Eastern Pennsylvania than in San Francisco.

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ManifestDreamMBA · Answer

A) More people want to live in San Francisco than in Eastern Pennsylvania. Its not about what people generally want, we are concerned about places where talented people live or want to live. This has not impact on the conclusion
B) Allied Iron Works' most important natural resources cannot be found near San Francisco. Supports the example but not the conclusion. 
C) It is not cheaper for a company to run its operations from San Francisco than from Eastern Pennsylvania.  This makes sense, it eliminates alternate reason for the move 
 D) No iron companies other than Allied Iron Works are located in San Francisco. It doesn't matter and has not impact on the conclusion
E) Fewer people live in Eastern Pennsylvania than in San Francisco. It doesn't matter, we are concerned about places where talented people live or want to live. The stats has not impact on the conclusion

Pachauri20 · Answer

The answer given in explanation and above are different

Mehvish67 · Answer

after analyzing the situation the best option should be C .THEN WHY THE ANSWER STATED IS B. EXPLAIN PLEASE

bb · Answer

Your reasoning is correct in case you were trying to solve it for a strengthen type of a question but this one is an assumption.

bb · Answer

Trying to answer this question in your own words, it’s a little tricky because there’s no clear conclusion so that could be a number of assumptions:

1. Talented People don’t necessarily want to live close to where resources are. 
2. The company moved looking for talented people and not for another reason. 
3 talented people want to live in San Francisco

A) this one seems close and was very tempting but I noticed the distinction of talented versus general people.

B) this is one of the assumptions but sort of slightly removed so not a very clean assumption in the GMAT sense. This question again feels like someone took a different type of question and repurposed it into an assumption question. This seems like it was a strengthen question to start with. Or something like that and then it was mutilated.

C. This seems like a trap because the argument is not concerned with profitability or cheapness only access to talent.

D. Irrelevant

E. This one is also close and similar to A, it could kind of be an assumption but it’s too broad because it talks about people and not specifically talented people.

vfost906 · Answer

C is concerned with profit and B is concerned with location to natural resources which is what the conclusion is about. Hence why B is correct.

Bunuel · Answer

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

As you break down the argument in this assumption question, notice that the second sentence is used as evidence for the claim made in the first. So the "conclusion" here is essentially that companies can move farther from natural resources to be closer to human resources and the evidence for this claim is that a company moved from Pennsylvania to San Francisco. Note that nowhere in the argument does it say that San Francisco is great for human resources or poor for natural resources, or that Pennsylvania is great for natural resources or poor for human resources!

You should anticipate, then, that the right answer must fill in this gap in logic, showing that Allied Iron Works' move is consistent with the conclusion. This should then lead you to debate between (A), (B), and (E). Notice that (A) and (E) each deal with Pennsylvania and human resources, and that (B) deals with San Francisco and natural resources. How do you then choose?

If you hold these choices up to the Assumption Negation Technique, you'll see that:

The opposite of (A) is that fewer people want to live in San Francisco than in Pennsylvania. But what if more people already live there? The argument gives the caveat "places where talented people live or want to live," allowing for that "or" rationale. If lots of people already live there, then San Francisco is still a good natural resources hub. And (E) is wrong because it only hits the other portion: what if fewer people already live in San Francisco...but more want to live there so Allied Iron Works could attract the employees it wants? Notice, also, that neither choice talks about "talented" people, but the argument does.

Choice (B) gets no such either/or, so it is a necessary assumption: if the opposite of (B) is true and important natural resources are readily available there, then the move is not at all evidence of the phenomenon the author argues for.  Choice (B) is therefore correct.

The advent of low-cost freight and shipping has allowed businesses to

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