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VerbalCritical Reasoning

Free GMAT Critical Reasoning Practice Question

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The management of a regional grocery chain credits the company's new loyalty app for a 9 percent rise in repeat purchases over the past year. Yet that rise occurred only at the chain's stores that also relocated to busier shopping centers during the same period. The stores that adopted the app but kept their old locations recorded no change in repeat purchases at all. Which of the following best expresses the main conclusion of the author's argument?

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Answer & Explanation

Correct answer

E

Find the main conclusion by locating the single claim that all the other statements are offered to support. The author's purpose is to push back on management's interpretation. The author grants the 9 percent rise but points out it appears only where stores also relocated, and is absent where the app was adopted without relocation. Those facts build toward one verdict: management's credit to the app is unwarranted.

(E) states that verdict and is the point everything else supports. (C) is tempting because it is a conclusion of sorts, but it is an intermediate step. The author offers the relocation explanation as a reason; the final judgment the argument is driving at is that crediting the app is not justified. (A) restates the premise the author is reinterpreting, not the author's own position. (D) restates a piece of the supporting evidence, the kind of fact that backs the conclusion rather than being it. (B) is an over-broad paraphrase that extends the author's narrow, chain-specific point into a general law about loyalty apps the argument never claims.