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VerbalCritical Reasoning

Free GMAT Critical Reasoning Practice Question

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Maxwell Grocers operates a chain of mid-size supermarkets. A district manager has urged the company to close the in-store bakeries, arguing that the floor space the bakeries occupy should be given over to packaged goods, which carry higher profit margins. A company analyst disagrees. Drawing on a recent in-house study, the analyst notes that shoppers who buy fresh bakery items spend, on average, 30 percent more per visit than shoppers who do not. The analyst concludes that closing the bakeries would most likely lower, rather than raise, each store's total revenue, and that the bakeries should therefore be kept.

In the analyst's argument, the two portions in boldface play which of the following roles?

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Answer & Explanation

Correct answer

A

This is a boldface role question, so first locate the argument's main conclusion, then classify each boldface portion against it. The analyst's main conclusion is that closing the bakeries would lower revenue and that the bakeries should be kept; that conclusion is NOT in boldface. The first boldface portion is the district manager's recommendation to give the bakery space to packaged goods, which is the very position the analyst sets out to oppose. The second boldface portion (bakery shoppers spend 30 percent more per visit) is the evidence the analyst uses to argue against that recommendation. So the first is an opposed recommendation and the second is evidence used against it, which is exactly (A).

(B) is wrong on conclusion status: it calls the first boldface the argument's main conclusion, but the main conclusion is unbolded and the first boldface belongs to the opponent. (C) reverses direction: it says the argument supports the recommendation in the first boldface, when the analyst in fact opposes it. (D) swaps the two roles outright, calling the recommendation evidence and the evidence a recommendation. (E) names the first portion correctly but mislabels the second as the main conclusion, when the second portion is supporting evidence and the conclusion is unbolded. Each wrong choice fails on a clean structural error of role, direction, or conclusion status, not on a fine wording distinction.