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The Brideswell town library recently pushed its weeknight closing time from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., and over the following year weeknight visits to the library rose by 22 percent. The library's director points to this jump as evidence that the longer evening hours have brought in residents who had not been using the library at all. The director's conclusion is questionable, however, because
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Correct answer
A
Complete-the-passage. The blank follows 'The director's conclusion is questionable, however, because,' so the credited choice must supply a reason the director's conclusion fails. First pin down that conclusion precisely: the longer evening hours brought in residents 'who had not been using the library at all,' that is, brand-new users. The only evidence offered is that weeknight visits rose 22 percent. The gap: a rise in the number of weeknight visits is not the same as a rise in the number of distinct people using the library. The extra visits could come from people who already used the library and simply moved to evenings, in which case the user base did not expand at all.
(A) closes exactly that gap. If most of the additional weeknight visitors had already been visiting regularly at other times, then the evening surge is existing patrons shifting when they come, not new residents being reached. That is precisely the reason the new-patron conclusion is doubtful, and the connector 'because' reads cleanly. It is the credited answer.
Why each other choice misses:
(B) points to a town with no rise where hours were not extended. That supports the idea that the extended hours caused Brideswell's increase, and it never touches whether the visitors were new. It runs in the wrong direction for a sentence meant to challenge the director.
(C) compares Brideswell to other libraries using weekend programming. How a peer performed with a different program has no bearing on whether Brideswell's own gain reflects new users. It is an on-topic-sounding distractor that changes the subject.
(D) cites a slight daytime decline. This is tempting because it hints at people shifting times, but a small daytime drop is just as consistent with genuinely new evening users plus an unrelated daytime dip; it does not show the weeknight visitors were prior users. It addresses an adjacent link, not the actual gap, and leans on the underweighted hedge 'slightly.'
(E) says the hours made visiting more convenient. That merely restates why visits went up and is compatible with attracting new patrons, so it bolsters the director rather than questioning the conclusion. A completion after 'questionable, however, because' cannot be a fact the director would happily cite.
Takeaway: on a complete-the-passage item, read the connector first to fix the direction the blank must run, then find the choice that targets the specific gap between what the evidence shows (more visits) and what the conclusion claims (more, and new, users).
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