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VerbalCritical Reasoning

Free GMAT Critical Reasoning Practice Question

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City auditor: Our transit agency says ridership proves the new express line succeeds, since the express line now carries more passengers per day than any other line. But the express line also runs more trains per day than any other line, so the figure the agency cites does not by itself establish that the line is unusually well used.

The answer to which of the following questions would be most useful in evaluating the argument?

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Answer & Explanation

Correct answer

A

The auditor's point is that a higher daily total may merely reflect running more trains, not heavier use. The right evaluation question isolates use from service level.

(A) does exactly that: passengers per train normalizes ridership by the number of trains, so a yes confirms unusually heavy use while a no shows the daily total just tracks extra service.

(B) is the same-axis near-miss: it re-asks about daily totals, the very metric the auditor flagged as confounded by train frequency, only against other cities, so it never removes the confound.

(C), (D), and (E) test cost, growth, and comfort, none of which addresses use-per-service-unit. Only (A) discriminates use from frequency.