Data InsightsTwo-Part Analysis

Free GMAT Two-Part Analysis Practice Question

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Council member: The city should convert the two parking lanes on Bryce Avenue into a protected bicycle lane. Several comparable cities that did this saw cycling commute trips rise sharply within a year, and the council has formally adopted higher cycling rates as a goal. Transit director: I share the goal, but a protected lane on Bryce would remove roughly 90 on-street parking spaces, and the merchants along Bryce depend on that parking; in the cities you cite, the converted streets had off-street parking garages nearby, which Bryce does not. In the table, select the statement that both speakers explicitly commit to, and select the statement that the council member would use to argue for the conversion but that the transit director has not committed to. Make one selection in each column. The two selections must be different statements.

Statement both speakers explicitly commit to: . Statement the council member relies on to argue for the conversion but that the transit director has not committed to: .

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Answer & Explanation

Correct answer

1: Raising the city's cycling commute rate is a worthwhile objective. · 2: Comparable cities that built protected lanes saw cycling commute trips rise sharply.

This is a two-speaker argument. The first selection asks for the one claim both speakers explicitly take a position on, read at the strength of the weaker commitment rather than the strongest version either speaker could be stretched to.

The first selection, the shared commitment. The council member adopts a higher cycling rate as a goal, and the transit director opens with "I share the goal," so both explicitly affirm that raising the cycling rate is worthwhile: option 1. The traps: option 2 (no cost to merchants) is something the transit director flatly contradicts; option 3 (doubling trips citywide) overstates what the council member actually said, since trips rose sharply in other cities, not a citywide doubling here, and is the over-strengthening trap; option 4 attributes Bryce off-street garages that the director says do not exist; option 5 about merchant opposition is never stated by either speaker.

The second selection, a premise the council member leans on that the transit director has not endorsed. The council member's whole case rests on the other-cities evidence, option 2, which the transit director never affirms or uses. The traps here are statements the director did commit to: option 1 (merchants depend on parking) and option 4 (cited cities had garages) are the director's own points, so the council member is not relying on them against the director; options 3 and 5 (the 90 spaces) are facts the director raised, not the council member's lever.

The key trap here is over-strengthening. Option 3 in the first selection tempts you because it sounds pro-conversion, but neither speaker commits to a citywide doubling, so it is not a shared claim, it is an extrapolation past what was said. The cleanest contrast is option 2 in the first selection, which the transit director flatly denies, so it is not shared either. Only the modest goal in option 1 is held by both speakers.