"Surprising" Phenomenon
Why did restaurants see an increase in sales when the city raised the rate on downtown parking?
Objective
The correct answer will be a hypothesis that explains why an increased short-term parking rate would help downtown restaurants, despite their customers needing short-term parking rate. The explanation must provide some rationale for why people are more likely to go to the restaurant despite higher parking costs.
A
Customers of the district’s businesses can also use private parking lots, which are generally more expensive than on-street parking.
We need to know why restaurants did better after the rate increase than before. These other lots are simply a constant that don’t factor into the apparent paradox.
B
Owners of the district’s businesses, for the most part, initially opposed the raising of the on-street parking rates.
It doesn’t matter what owners think of the new parking rate. We need to know why that rate had the effect it did.
C
Even before the change in parking rates, the staffs of the businesses in the district used only off-street parking.
If anything, this eliminates a possible explanation that the new rate freed up more parking for customers. We need something that explains why the new rate helped restaurants.
D
More expensive parking leads to greater turnover in cars parked in front of the businesses in the district.
Since the new rate leads to higher turnover, more people are parking in front of the restaurant than before. The restaurants thus have more potential customers throughout the day, hence why their profits have increased.
E
The business district is in competition with malls that offer free parking to their customers.
If anything, the new rate would seem to hurt the restaurants even more if customers had a free alternative elsewhere. This doesn’t explain how the new rate helped restaurants.
"Surprising" Phenomenon
Increased housing supply generally leads to lower rents for existing apartments, but rents for existing apartments in Brewsterville rose when the housing supply increased.
Objective
The correct answer will be a hypothesis that explains why, contrary to what usually happens, existing apartments became more expensive when the housing supply increased. This explanation must show some quirk in Brewsterville’s housing situation that causes rents to rise with supply, or else some other factor that affected the prices of existing apartments without factoring in housing supply.
A
Fewer new apartments were constructed than originally planned.
Even if just one new apartment was constructed, existing rents would be expected to drop. We need to know why they rose.
B
The new apartments were much more desirable than the existing apartments.
The new apartments, no matter how desirable, contributed to the housing supply. And yet, rents for existing apartments rose. We need something that explains why that happened.
C
Rents in some areas close to Brewsterville dropped as a result of the construction of the new apartments.
We care about what happened in Brewsterville, not in areas close-by.
D
A sizeable number of people moved out of the existing apartments while the new apartments were being constructed.
Does this mean the rents would rise? We don’t know. This doesn’t give us enough information to be a true explanation.
E
The new apartments were constructed at the outset of a trend of increasing numbers of people seeking residence in Brewsterville.
Even though the housing supply rose, that housing supply was quickly filled by people moving into Brewsterville. The end result was either a net neutral or net negative for the housing supply, hence why rents didn’t drop as expected for existing apartments.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
Government leaders’ wish to use the surplus to pay down the national debt makes no sense. This is because the country is underfunded and needs money to make it better off. The author makes an analogous argument to a homeowner who uses all their money to pay off a debt instead of reinvesting it in the farm.
Identify Conclusion
The plan to use the budget surplus to pay down the national debt makes no sense.
A
Homeowners should not pay off their mortgages early if they must neglect upkeep of their homes in order to do so.
This is not the main conclusion of the argument. This is an analogy that lends support to the conclusion that the government leaders’ plan makes no sense.
B
It does not make sense for the government to use the budget surplus to pay down the national debt.
This is main point of the entire argument. It receives support from the following sentences and the analogy.
C
A homeowner’s personal financial situation is analogous in relevant ways to the financial situation of a country’s government.
While the author believes this, it is not the main conclusion of the argument. The author uses the homeowner as an analogy to support the conclusion that the plan does not make sense.
D
Because of underfunding, the government does not maintain adequate standards in the services it provides.
This is a premise that supports the argument’s main conclusion. This cannot be a conclusion because it does not receive support anywhere else in the argument.
E
Government leaders want to use the country’s large budget surplus to pay down the national debt.
The conclusion is *not* that the government wants to use the surplus to pay off the debt. The conclusion is that this plan does not make sense.