A recent poll found that over 80 percent of the residents of Nalmed Pr

Question

Which of the following, if true, most logically completes the passage?

A recent poll found that over 80 percent of the residents of Nalmed Province favored a massive expansion of the commuter rail system as a means of significantly reducing congestion on the province’s highways and were willing to help pay for the expansion through an increase in their taxes. Nevertheless, the poll results indicate that expansion of the rail system, if successfully completed, would be unlikely to achieve its goal of easing congestion, because __________.

(A) most people in favor of expanding the rail system reported less congestion during their highway commute as the primary benefit they would experience

(B) of the less than 20 percent of residents not counted as favoring the expansion, about half claimed to have no opinion one way or the other

(C) the twice-daily periods of peak congestion caused by people commuting in cars have grown from about an hour each to almost two and a half hours each in the past 20 years

(D) expanding the commuter rail system will require the construction of dozens of miles of new rail bed

(E) the proposed expansion to the commuter rail system will make it possible for some people who both live and work at suburban locations to commute by rail

GMATPrep Code  :  VCR005068

egmat · Accepted Answer

Hi, Let's first understand the passage: 80% residents favored massive expansion of rail system and were willing to pay through increased taxes. Now, we need to think: why would this massive expansion not achieve its goal of easing congestion? Before moving onto the option statements, let's try to prethink: 1. Because the number of new people who would start using highways would be greater than the number of people who would shift from highways to rail system 2. There are some disadvantages associated with rail travel, e.g. stations are not located conveniently, which would make people continue to use highways only Or anything which suggests that the traffic on the highway is not going to decrease Now, let's go through the options: A. most people in favor of expanding the rail system reported less congestion during their highway commute as the primary benefit they would experience - These people are concerned about less congestion on highways. Thus, these people (which form majority) intend to continue to use highways. Thus, this option suggests that the congestion might not decrease much. Let's keep this option aside. It could be the answer. B. of the less than 20 percent of residents not counted as favoring the expansion, about half claimed to have no opinion one way or the other - This option is talking only about 10% of the people and that too about their opinion on expansion, not whether they will continue to use highways or not. Thus, this option can be eliminated. C. the twice-daily periods of peak congestion caused by people commuting in cars have grown from about an hour each to almost two and a half hours each in the past 20 years - So, basically this says that the traffic has increased in the last 20 years. But if people start using rail network after its massive expansion, the traffic is epected to come down and congestion should ease. Thus, given option doesn't provide a reason for congestion to continue in the face of rail expansion. D. expanding the commuter rail system will require the construction of dozens of miles of new railbed - so, this is part of expansion. Since this is part of expansion, funds should be available for this also. How does this affect congestion on highways? It tries to suggest that expansion may not actually take place because it would require construction of miles of roadbed. But the question stem specifically states that "rail expansion, if successfully completed,...". SO, this option statement is not valid and does not provide a reason for continued congestion. E. the proposed expansion to the commuter rail system will make it possible for some people who both live and work at suburban locations to commute by rail - This should ease congestion. Just the opposite of what we are looking for. So, after going through the options, we see that only option A is the choice which provides a reason for continued congestion and thus, this is the correct answer. Hope this helps

Feel free to ask if any clarification is required. Meanwhile, dont forget to attend the SC session on Saturday. Please find the link below: https://e-gmat.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Free-Session-button.png Regards, Chiranjeev

sludge · Answer

I vote A: residents are only supporting the measure because they expect EVERYONE ELSE BUT THEMSELVES to migrate from driving to rail while they maintain no intention of doing so too. thus a possible outcome may be that only a marginal amount of people use the new system while everyone else continues to grapple with bad traffic. 

OA?

SVaidyaraman · Answer

Adding to the explanations already given, let me say that the question talks about poll results and hence we are looking for opinions of the people in the poll rather than facts. So such choices are most likely to be right. If we look at the choices we see C, D and may be E are not really opinions, only A and B are. So we can spend more time on them. We can immediately eliminate B because the numbers given are not significant enough to affect the achievement of the goal.

So if you are pressed for time , you should go for A. Now the reason why A is the correct answer is that as explained in some of the previous posts if the majority of the people think that the major benefit of the expansion is that they can continue using the highway then the goal of easing congestion on the highway cannot be achieved by the expansion of the rail system.

Sukant2010 · Answer

Hi,
I have a doubt regarding option (a). I am not satisfied with the explanation that if people reported less congestion then they will continue to use highways. In the option it is written that, most people in favor of expanding the rail system reported less congestion during their highway commute as the primary benefit they would experience, i.e. people reported this when they were using highways. Nowhere in this statement, the option talks about the intention to continue using highways as a primary source of commute.
Though, I agree that no other option is helping much in the question, but could you please explain in little detail about the explanation.
Also, are such questions good enough to come in the GMAT..? 
Thanks in advance.

egmat · Answer

Hi Sukant,

First of all, this is an official questions and therefore, would have probably appeared in the actual GMAT exams of some test takers. Also, your job in most GMAT CR questions is to find the best among the "five given option statement", not really the best among "ALL possible".

Now, before I explain again why option A is correct, can you please tell me the meaning of option A in your words?

Thanks,
Chiranjeev

anairamitch1804 · Answer

The logic of the proposed rail expansion to ease congestion is as follows: (1) Expand rail system --> (2) People use the rail instead of driving on the highways --> (3) Less highway congestion.

On the other hand, the argument (final sentence) states that something in the poll results indicates that accomplishing (1) is unlikely to accomplish (3).

How might accomplishing (1) not lead to (3)? This would be the case if (2) does not happen. In other words, the rail system is built, BUT most people continue to drive instead of using the rail and the highways stay congested as a result.

In answer (A), we more or less find this idea: "Most" of the residents favoring the rail proposal do so because they believe OTHER people will use the rail rather than drive, leaving the highways less congested. They, however, plan to continue driving to work! If that's the case for a majority of residents, then (2) in the logical chain of events will indeed not happen, breaking the chain from (1) to (3).

Does that make sense? Answers (B) through (E) are largely irrelevant.

Fdambro294 · Answer

I believe someone posted something similar above, but one thing I’ve begun to notice is that focusing on the question stem and defining your exact goal is incredibly important.

In this example, we need to fill in a blank that follows an argumentative conclusion and the word “since”. Therefore, we are looking for a factual premise that backs up the conclusion mentioned in the same sentence.

“Nevertheless, the POLL RESULTS indicate that expansion of the rail system, IF SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED, would be unlikely to achieve its goal of easing congestion because______”

(1st). The conclusion given is somewhat of a “hypothetical” conclusion.

The author is not discussing whether or not the rail system CAN be completed. Any fact that tends to show it will be hard to complete this rail system or that it is too expensive will NOT undermine the poll results.

The author is saying even IF we were to build the rail system, based on these poll results, the rail system still would not ease congestion.

So we need to find a reason why the poll results (which say 80% of residents are in favor of the rail system and are willing to pay for it) somehow indicate that the rail system, IF implemented, would not help with the traffic.

D is one of those classic traps that show up in a Conclusion like this. The author is saying if a certain plan were enacted, it would not reach its goal. Whether or not the plan is hard to enact will have no impact on this statement.

(2nd) The author is looking at these poll results and using them as his support for his Conclusion that the plan of the rail system will not ease traffic congestion.

The author does not really give any premise to back up this conclusion. We need to find a fact that will give us more conviction in the claim that the poll results showing 80% of the ppl are in favor of this rail system and are willing to pay for it in the form of increased taxes shows that the planned rail system will NOT ease traffic congestion.

As another poster mentioned above, only A and B discuss the poll results in any meaningful way. While this does not automatically mean one of them must be correct, it’s a pretty big clue.

C just tells us that the traffic has become worse. It does not tell us how the poll results would suggest that the plan will not be successful.

E provides a potential benefit to the new rail system. If people can use the rail system to commute, then this give us more belief in the OPPOSITE claim: the rail system might actually ease traffic congestion.

Lastly, B discusses the minority of ppl and the fact that they have no opinion either way. The fact they have no opinion can not really support the claim that the poll results involving the other 80% who support the plan indicate that this rail system will not meet its goal of easing traffic.

Lastly, A tells us that the “primary benefit” most of the people who favored the plan in the polls believe they will get out of this rail system plan is “less congestion during their highway commute”.

While this definitively does not show us that they will in fact continue to commute, this fact suggests to us that most of these 80% of residents in favor of the rail system PLAN to continue their commute.

In the worst case scenario, if this rail system is built and most of the ppl will not use it and keep driving during their commute (because they believe that the rail system will ease the traffic congestion by way of everyone else no longer commuting and instead using the rail), then no one will end up using the rail system and traffic congestion will continue.

Everyone seems to be betting on the hopes that everyone else will use the rail. In the end though, it might be the case that none use the rail and we are left with the same traffic congestion.

This fact gives us more belief that even though the polls tell us that the majority of people are in favor of this rail system, it might be the case that most do not use it and the traffic congestion remains.

This is all we need to show when looking for an answer that strengthens or supports a conclusion.

A

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tkorzhan1995 · Answer

GMATNinja , can you please help to clarify that why A indicates that people who don't expect improvement in traffic congestion as a result of expansion of railway system will continue to commute by car?

GMATNinja · Answer

From the passage, we know that most people DO support the expansion of the commuter rail system. These supporters are the ones discussed in (A) -- not the people who DON'T think that the rail is a good idea.

With that in mind, take another look at (A):
 
(A) tells us that most of the people who support the expansion have a particular reason to do so: they think it will help  their highway commute .

In other words, they expect OTHER people to take the train, while they continue to commute in their cars. Most people don't actually plan to switch to using the rail system.

This is an issue, because if most people continue to commute by car, then the roads will still be congested even if the rail system is built.

That's why (A) gives us reason to believe that building the rail system would be unlikely to result in easing traffic congestion.

I hope that helps!

sriramsundaram91 · Answer

If most people still use highway even if metro rail is built and are willing to pay for this new construction thinking that it would make other people switch to using metro then that choice would be the best answer to this question therefore A.

Remember 80% of them still want to use the highway but want metro to be built

Remember 80% of them still want to use the highway but want metro to be built

A recent poll found that over 80 percent of the residents of Nalmed Pr

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