PrepTest 154, Section 1, Question 6
To discourage congestion, a city raised on-street parking(25 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(16 more words not shown)
- ACustomers of the(16 more words not shown)
- BOwners of the(15 more words not shown)
- CEven before the(16 more words not shown)
- DMore expensive parking(15 more words not shown)
- EThe business district(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Parking costs more, but the restaurants sell more. Why would making a visit more expensive help their business?
One possibility is that people change how they get downtown. Maybe some commuters take the bus instead of driving, find carrying a lunch inconvenient, and buy lunch when they arrive. That's a guess, not a fact about this city. It illustrates the kind of connection we need: the higher parking price changes people's behavior in a way that can help the restaurants.
What we’re looking for
The question asks for something that contributes to explaining the increase in sales. We don't have to prove that higher parking rates always help restaurants. We need to make this particular result less surprising. Keep both changes in view: parking became more expensive, yet restaurant sales rose. A fact about downtown that doesn't help connect those changes won't do much for us.
Working the answers
- A
Customers have another place to park, but it generally costs even more. Why would that increase restaurant sales? The availability of private lots doesn't tell us what improved for the restaurants after the on-street price went up. It gives another parking option without explaining the sales change.
- B
The business owners' initial opposition tells us how they reacted to the proposal. It doesn't tell us why the eventual effect on restaurants was favorable. They could have opposed the increase because they expected sales to fall, which would leave us with exactly the result we're trying to explain.
- C
If employees already parked off the street, moving their cars out of customer spaces isn't a change caused by the new rates. C describes an existing arrangement. We still need something about the rate increase that would lead to more sales.
- DCorrect
This offers a different connection from my bus-and-lunch guess. More expensive parking makes people move their cars sooner, so the same spaces can serve more visitors. That matters especially to restaurants whose customers only need to park for a short time.
For a simple illustration, suppose 100 people park near a restaurant during a day and 10 percent buy something. That's 10 customers. If greater turnover lets 200 people use those spaces, the same 10 percent would give the restaurant 20 customers. Those numbers aren't facts about this district; they show how more visitors passing through can increase sales even though each visitor pays more to park.
- E
Free parking at competing malls makes the result harder to explain, if anything. It gives people a reason to go elsewhere when downtown parking becomes more expensive. We need a reason more restaurant sales could occur downtown despite that expense, not another reason customers might leave.
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