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VerbalReading Comprehension

Free GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Question

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When several cities eliminated rules requiring new apartment buildings near rail stations to include a minimum number of parking spaces, researchers tracked the households that subsequently moved into those buildings. Compared with residents of otherwise similar buildings still subject to the old parking mandates, the new residents owned roughly forty percent fewer cars. Commentators seized on the gap as direct evidence that parking mandates themselves cause car dependence: build the spaces, the argument runs, and people will fill them. Repeal the mandates, and car ownership falls.

That inference, however attractive, outpaces what the data establish. The buildings were not assigned to households at random. People who already prefer to live without a car, or who expect to, are precisely the ones most likely to seek out an apartment that does not bundle an expensive parking space into the rent. A building that omits parking therefore attracts the car-averse, and the resulting low ownership reflects, in part, who chose to move in rather than what the policy did to them after they arrived. The forty percent gap conflates the effect of the rule with the preferences of the residents it selects.

None of this means the mandates are harmless. Even after one accounts for such sorting, a portion of the difference probably does trace to the policy itself, since a household that finds parking inconvenient and costly may gradually drive less and eventually shed a vehicle it once considered essential. The defensible claim is narrower than the headline: repealing parking mandates likely reduces car ownership somewhat, chiefly among residents already inclined toward that choice, rather than transforming the driving habits of the general population. Policymakers who expect the larger result may be disappointed, but those who treat the smaller one as worthless would discard a real, if modest, effect.

The passage supports each of the following statements about the forty percent gap in car ownership except:

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Answer & Explanation

Correct answer

C

Question type: except-support. Four choices are statements the passage supports; the credited answer is the one statement the passage does not support (in fact contradicts).

The author's central move is to reject exactly the claim in (C). The first paragraph reports that commentators 'seized on the gap as direct evidence that parking mandates themselves cause car dependence,' and the second and third paragraphs are devoted to refuting that strong reading. The second paragraph states that the low ownership 'reflects, in part, who chose to move in rather than what the policy did to them after they arrived,' and that 'the forty percent gap conflates the effect of the rule with the preferences of the residents it selects.' The third paragraph then gives the author's own bottom line: repealing mandates 'likely reduces car ownership somewhat, chiefly among residents already inclined toward that choice, rather than transforming the driving habits of the general population.' So the passage explicitly attributes much of the gap to resident self-selection and only a modest portion to the policy. (C) says the opposite, that the gap is explained 'almost entirely by the parking policy rather than by the residents' prior preferences.' That is the inflated, preference-discounting reading the author spends the whole passage dismantling, so (C) is unsupported and is the credited except answer.

Each of the other four is anchored in the text. (A) restates the second paragraph's opening, 'The buildings were not assigned to households at random.' (B) restates the same paragraph's claim that a parking-free building 'attracts the car-averse' and that ownership reflects 'who chose to move in,' a difference in prior inclination. (D) restates the third paragraph's concession that 'a portion of the difference probably does trace to the policy itself,' since a household 'may gradually drive less and eventually shed a vehicle.' (E) restates the third paragraph's defensible claim that repeal 'likely reduces car ownership somewhat, chiefly among residents already inclined,' rather than 'transforming the driving habits of the general population.' Because all four are directly supported, none can be the except answer, leaving (C).