Twenty percent of the stores in Morganville's downtown shopping district will fail within five years because they will be competing...
GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions
Twenty percent of the stores in Morganville's downtown shopping district will fail within five years because they will be competing directly with the SaveMart discount department store newly opened in East Morganville. The downtown shopping district has lost business at this rate before and has always completely rebounded. Confidence that it will rebound again from the losses it is now about to suffer is ill founded, however, because ________.
Which of the following most logically completes the argument below?
Passage Analysis:
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
| Twenty percent of the stores in Morganville's downtown shopping district will fail within five years because they will be competing directly with the SaveMart discount department store newly opened in East Morganville. |
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| The downtown shopping district has lost business at this rate before and has always completely rebounded. |
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| Confidence that it will rebound again from the losses it is now about to suffer is ill founded, however, because ______. |
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Argument Flow:
The argument starts by predicting doom (\(20\%\) failure), then presents evidence that suggests this shouldn't be worrying (past recoveries), but then argues that this time is different and we shouldn't expect recovery.
Main Conclusion:
Confidence that the downtown shopping district will rebound from its upcoming losses is ill founded.
Logical Structure:
The argument uses a 'this time is different' structure. It acknowledges that past similar situations led to recovery, but argues that some unstated factor makes the current situation unique and prevents the expected recovery pattern.
Prethinking:
Question type:
Logically Completes - We need to find what explains why this time will be different from the historical pattern of recovery
Precision of Claims
The argument makes specific claims: exactly \(20\%\) failure rate, complete historical rebounds, and that confidence in recovery is now ill-founded. We need to explain why the pattern will break this time.
Strategy
Look for what's fundamentally different about the current situation compared to past losses. The key is that SaveMart represents a new type of threat that wasn't present during previous recoveries. We need to identify why SaveMart's impact will be permanent rather than temporary like past challenges.
This choice identifies that SaveMart will specifically eliminate the anchor stores that other downtown stores depend on for customer traffic. This creates a fundamental difference from past recoveries - when anchor stores fail, they take the entire district down with them because other stores lose their customer base. This explains why confidence in recovery is ill-founded this time, making it the correct completion.
This choice mentions a bus line that brings East Morganville shoppers downtown. However, this doesn't explain why recovery won't happen this time - if anything, existing transportation links might help downtown compete. This fails to distinguish the current situation from past recoveries and doesn't support the conclusion that confidence is ill-founded.
This choice describes what happened during past recoveries (failed businesses were replaced by similar businesses). This actually supports the idea that recovery should happen again, which contradicts the argument's conclusion that confidence in recovery is ill-founded. We need something that shows this time is different, not something that reinforces the pattern of recovery.
This choice focuses on SaveMart's low-profit business plan for the first five years. This information doesn't help explain why downtown won't recover from store closures. SaveMart's profit margins don't directly relate to whether the downtown district can rebound from losing 20% of its stores.
This choice suggests the district could shrink without completely collapsing. However, this doesn't explain why confidence in a rebound is ill-founded - partial survival isn't the same as failing to rebound. The argument needs an explanation for why even expecting a recovery (not complete survival) is wrong.