The city of Workney, in raising bus fares from $1.00 to $1.25, proposed that 18 fare tokens be sold for...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
The city of Workney, in raising bus fares from $1.00 to $1.25, proposed that 18 fare tokens be sold for $20.00 to alleviate the extra burden of the fare increase on the city's poor people. Critics suggested alternatively that 9 fare tokens be sold for $10.00, because a $20.00 outlay would be prohibitive for poor riders.
The alternative proposal depends on which of the following assumptions?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| The city of Workney, in raising bus fares from \(\$1.00\) to \(\$1.25\), proposed that 18 fare tokens be sold for \(\$20.00\) to alleviate the extra burden of the fare increase on the city's poor people. |
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| Critics suggested alternatively that 9 fare tokens be sold for \(\$10.00\), because a \$20.00\) outlay would be prohibitive for poor riders. |
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Argument Flow:
The passage presents a city's fare increase and solution, then immediately introduces critics who propose a different approach based on affordability concerns. We move from the city's perspective (focused on providing savings) to the critics' perspective (focused on upfront cost barriers).
Main Conclusion:
There isn't a traditional conclusion here - this is more of a setup presenting two competing proposals. The critics believe their 9-token deal is better than the city's 18-token deal.
Logical Structure:
The critics' reasoning follows this logic: Even if both deals offer similar per-ride savings, the upfront cost matters more than the total savings for poor riders. Their assumption is that affordability of the initial purchase is more important than maximizing long-term savings.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Assumption - We need to find what the critics' alternative proposal must assume to be true for their reasoning to work
Precision of Claims
The critics make a specific claim about poor riders' financial capacity (\(\$20\) outlay being prohibitive) and propose an exact alternative (9 tokens for \(\$10\))
Strategy
The critics argue that 9 tokens for \(\$10\) is better than 18 tokens for \(\$20\) because \(\$20\) is prohibitive for poor riders. We need to identify what must be true for this reasoning to hold. The critics assume that the smaller upfront cost (\(\$10\) vs \(\$20\)) makes their proposal better, but this only works if certain conditions are met about poor riders' financial situation and spending patterns
This talks about ridership levels staying constant after the fare increase, but the critics' proposal isn't about maintaining ridership numbers - it's specifically about making token purchases more affordable for poor people. Whether ridership stays the same or changes doesn't affect whether the 9-token deal is better than the 18-token deal.
The critics aren't making any comparison between poor and non-poor riders' likelihood to use the tokens. Their argument is simply that $20 is too much upfront for poor riders, so $10 is better. They don't need to assume anything about who would be more likely to use which offer.
This is exactly what the critics must assume! Their entire argument is that $20 is prohibitive, so they propose $10 instead. But if $10 is also prohibitive for poor riders, then their "solution" doesn't actually solve anything. For their proposal to work, they absolutely must assume that poor riders can afford the $10 upfront cost. If we negate this assumption, their proposal becomes pointless.
This is about why the city needs the fare increase, but the critics' proposal doesn't depend on the reason behind the increase. Whether the money is for new buses or something else doesn't affect their argument that $10 is more affordable than $20 for poor riders.
This talks about purchase patterns between different quantities of tokens, but the critics' argument isn't based on how many people would buy each option. They're focused specifically on affordability for poor riders, not on overall purchase volume or frequency.