LR Drill Set 6, Question 5
When the Green Line bus company declares bankruptcy(51 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AGreen Line's financial(5 more words not shown)
- BGreen Line can(10 more words not shown)
- CBus service is(11 more words not shown)
- DMass transit is(7 more words not shown)
- ENo bus company(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Saving the bus service could help thousands of people. But does that settle whether the government should buy it?
I'd want to know whether the government can run the service and what the purchase would cost. Money spent here might be unavailable for schools, parks, or another service. Calling a plan worthwhile doesn't make those trade-offs disappear.
The author acknowledges a cost objection but answers it with a priority: vital community services matter more than fiscal efficiency.
Fine—if this bus service belongs in that category. So far, we've been told that thousands would lose access to mass transit, not explicitly that mass transit is a vital community service.
What we’re looking for
For the required-assumption question, that connection is a strong prediction. The argument uses the importance of vital services to justify preserving transit, so it needs transit to count as one. We don't have to resolve every practical concern about buying the company. We need something this stated line of reasoning relies on.
Working the answers
- A
Inefficient management could explain the financial trouble, but declining ridership or some other cause could explain it too. The author recommends preserving access to a service, not replacing bad managers as an end in itself. That recommendation doesn't require one particular diagnosis of the company's bankruptcy.
- B
The argument doesn't promise that public ownership will be more efficient. It explicitly answers the waste objection by saying vital services take priority over efficiency. The author could think the public service will be inefficient and still defend buying it for that reason. B offers a possible extra benefit rather than a required assumption.
- C
Being the most-used form of mass transit is not necessary for bus service to matter. Rail could serve more residents overall while these thousands still depended on Green Line. Also, “used most” compares transit forms; it doesn't necessarily mean most residents use buses. Either way, no such ranking is needed to apply the author's vital-service reasoning.
- DCorrect
Mass transit must be a vital community service for this appeal to vital services to support preserving it. Suppose transit were outside that category. We could accept the priority rule and still have no reason from that rule to buy this bus line. D connects the particular service to the category doing the argumentative work. It doesn't claim the purchase solves every budget or management concern.
- E
Other bus companies could operate elsewhere in the region while failing to serve the thousands affected by Green Line's closure. The passage already states that those people will lose access. That doesn't require Green Line to be the only company anywhere in the region. E makes the exclusivity much broader than the argument needs.
More Necessary Assumption questions
- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 6, Question 12Necessary Assumption
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- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 10, Question 2Necessary Assumption
- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 11, Question 7Necessary Assumption
- Logical Reasoning Drill Set 12, Question 10Necessary Assumption
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