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Source: Official Guide for GMAT Review 2016 Critical Reasoning; #5

1

Which of the following, if true, provides

Which of the following, if true, provides the strongest grounds for a prediction that municipalities will buy QuickFreeze's purification system despite the need to maintain a conventional purification system as well?

1 Explanation

1

John Robertson

o Question: Why would towns buy QuickFreeze to purify their water, if conventional purification still needs to be used in warm weather when QuickFreeze doesn't work, (and by extension if conventional systems work in the first place anyways)

o Task: Find further supporting info in the answer choices that provides reasoning for towns to purchase QuickFreeze, despite conventional systems existing already and assumedly working just fine (look for things like lower cost, improved functionality in QuickFreeze/shortcomings in conventional systems most likely)

o A: WRONG. Doesn't compare QF vs. CON. Also likely undermines QF, because QF (given the prompt) only deals with bacteria, so a town could wait until a better system comes along that deals with the other impurities, or maybe CON systems deal with those impurities already. Overall, undermines QF's sales pitch.

o B: WRONG. I think the GMAT is trying to lead you to think that "well if old systems need to be replaced, why not replace it with QF?" But, remember QF doesn't work if it's not cold outside. So, the towns will have a double cost now, replace the old warm weather systems, and install QF, which likely wouldn't happen overall.

o C: CORRECT. This highlights a shortcoming in the conventional systems, they can't kill bacteria in cold weather. QF can, and based in world of the prompt, there doesn't appear to be any competitors. So this is a great reason to purchase QF as a single conventional system won't do the job in cold weather, QF can, and comparing it to Answer Choice D, it's a much better reason.

o D: WRONG. I was comparing this to Choice C. Overall, QF could be cheap to maintain when not in use during the summer, so just taking that at face value it's a good supporting argument to purchase QF. But, who's to say QF doesn't cost a ton when being used? No information is provided on that, so knowing that, plus comparing to Choice C, makes this incorrect.

o E: WRONG. Water storage is irrelevant to the QF vs. CON discussion, and after reading choice C and D, those two where clearly worth the time to analyze instead of E.

Dec 28, 2016 • Comment

Cydney Seigerman, Magoosh Tutor

Thanks for being an active voice in our forum! You've done a great job analyzing the answer choices and concluding that (C) is correct. Great job! :D

Dec 29, 2016 • Reply

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Official Guide for GMAT Review 2016

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Section 8.4 Critical Reasoning

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