A Successful Clothing Department Store, In A Central Downtown Location of A Certain City GMAT Critical Reasoning

Question: A successful clothing department store, in a central downtown location of a certain city, is of a limited size and has grown so much over the past year that it needs to expand. There are a few other slightly larger available retails lots in the downtown regions for sale, but the prices per square foot are quite high. The management finds that cost per square foot of lots in a suburb a few miles from downtown is almost half of that in the downtown region, so they plan to relocate there to save costs.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines this plan?

A) The store will have to adapt to the building codes of the suburb, which may not be the same as the city.
B) The lot for the suburb location will require a sprawling parking lot.
C) Consumers from the city who do not own cars will have to pay bus fare to commute to this store now.
D) Almost all of the store's other locations, in other metropolitan regions throughout the state, are in downtown areas; very few are in suburbs.
E) Some of the available downtown locations, though only a few blocks away, would be closest to entirely different bus and subway lines.

“A successful clothing department store, in a central downtown location of a certain city” – is a GMAT Critical question. To answer the question, a candidate can either find a piece of evidence that would weaken the argument or have logical flaws in the argument. GMAT critical reasoning tests the logical and analytical skills of the candidates. This topic requires candidates to find the argument's strengths and weaknesses or the logical flaw in the argument. The GMAT CR section contains 10 -13 GMAT critical reasoning questions out of 36 GMAT verbal questions.

Answer: B
Explanation: The GMAT's critical reasoning section tests candidates' capacity for critical thought and analytical reasoning. To produce a cogent response, the candidate needs to possess high cognitive ability.

The given passage says:

A popular clothes department store in the city's downtown has a small footprint but has expanded so much in the past year that it needs more space. Other, slightly larger retail lots are available for purchase in the downtown areas, although the per-square-foot costs are fairly high. The management decides to relocate because the cost per square foot of lots in a suburb a few miles from the city centre is nearly half that in the downtown area.

Let's look at each option separately.

A: Inaccurate
It is not the correct choice. We may be deceived by this, but we have no idea how expensive or difficult it will be to comply with construction rules.

B: Correct
It is the correct choice. If a parking lot is necessary, you must pay for a bigger surface area, which raises the cost.

C: Inaccurate
It is an incorrect choice. However, our argument centres on costs rather than profits, which may or may not be harmed. Sincerely, the store doesn't care whether relocating to the suburbs increases the difficulty or cost of consumer excursions.

D: Inaccurate
It is not the best option. The store's decision to cut costs in the given situation is unaffected by the fact that the majority of its locations are in the downtowns of other big cities. Discard D.

E: Inaccurate
E is incorrect choice. Similar to C. The store doesn't care if other potential outlet locations have easy or convenient access; as long as they are more expensive alternatives, they are not in the running. Take out E.

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