The heavy traffic in Masana is a growing drain on the city's economy—the clogging of the streets of the central...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
The heavy traffic in Masana is a growing drain on the city's economy—the clogging of the streets of the central business district alone cost the economy more than $1.2 billion over the past year. In order to address this problem, officials plan to introduce congestion pricing, by which drivers would pay to enter the city's most heavily trafficked areas during the busiest times of the day.
Which of the following, if true, would most strongly indicate that the plan will be a success?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| The heavy traffic in Masana is a growing drain on the city's economy—the clogging of the streets of the central business district alone cost the economy more than \(\$1.2\text{ billion}\) over the past year. |
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| In order to address this problem, officials plan to introduce congestion pricing, by which drivers would pay to enter the city's most heavily trafficked areas during the busiest times of the day. |
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Argument Flow:
The argument starts by identifying a costly problem (heavy traffic draining the economy by over \(\$1.2\text{ billion}\)), then presents the officials' proposed solution (congestion pricing during busy times).
Main Conclusion:
There isn't actually a main conclusion in this passage - it's setting up a scenario where officials plan to use congestion pricing to address traffic problems.
Logical Structure:
This is a problem-solution setup rather than a complete argument. We have: Problem (traffic costs \(\$1.2\text{ billion}\)+) → Proposed Solution (congestion pricing). The question stem asks us to find what would indicate the plan will succeed, so we need to think about what would make congestion pricing effective.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Strengthen - We need to find information that would increase our belief that the congestion pricing plan will successfully address the traffic problem and economic drain
Precision of Claims
The key claims involve economic impact (\(\$1.2\text{ billion}\) loss), traffic conditions (heavy clogging), and a proposed solution (congestion pricing during peak times in busy areas)
Strategy
To strengthen that congestion pricing will be successful, we need evidence that:
- Drivers will actually change their behavior when faced with fees
- Similar plans have worked elsewhere
- The pricing will meaningfully reduce traffic volume
- Alternative transportation options exist for drivers to switch to
This tells us that about \(\mathrm{20\%}\) of vehicles are just passing through the central business district. While this gives us some information about traffic patterns, it doesn't tell us whether congestion pricing will actually work to reduce traffic. These transit drivers might still pay the fee and continue driving through, or they might find alternate routes, but we can't be sure this strengthens the plan's chances of success.
This shows that traffic is expected to grow by \(\mathrm{6\%}\) over five years without congestion pricing. While this emphasizes the need for action, it doesn't provide any evidence that congestion pricing will actually be effective in solving the problem. Knowing the problem will get worse doesn't strengthen our confidence that this particular solution will work.
This directly shows that congestion pricing has been successful in other urban areas by encouraging carpooling. This is powerful evidence because it demonstrates that the proposed mechanism actually works in practice - when faced with congestion pricing, people change their behavior in ways that reduce traffic (by sharing rides). This gives us strong reason to believe the same approach could succeed in Masana.
This tells us about the benefits of reducing traffic (\(\mathrm{5{,}500}\) new jobs if traffic drops \(\mathrm{15\%}\)), which shows why solving the problem would be valuable. However, it doesn't provide any evidence that congestion pricing will actually achieve this traffic reduction. We already know reducing traffic would be good - the question is whether the proposed plan will work.
This shows that over \(\mathrm{30\%}\) of vehicles already have multiple occupants. Like choice A, this gives us information about current conditions but doesn't strengthen our belief that congestion pricing will succeed. In fact, it might even suggest that many people are already carpooling, so there may be limited room for further improvement in this area.