GWD 20-7

Although the discount stores in Goreville’s central shopping district are expected to close within five years as a result of competition from a SpendLess discount department store that just opened, those locations will not stay vacant for long. In the five years since the opening of Colson’s, a nondiscount department store, a new store has opened at the location of every store in the shopping district that closed because it could not compete with Colson’s.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

A.     Many customers of Colson’s are expected to do less shopping there than they did before the SpendLess store opened.

B.     Increasingly, the stores that have opened in the central shopping district since Colson’s opened have been discount stores.

C.     At present, the central shopping district has as many stores operating in it as it ever had.

D.     Over the course of the next five years, it is expected that Goreville’s population will grow at a faster rate than it has for the past several decades.

E.     Many stores in the central shopping district sell types of merchandise that are not available at either SpendLess or Colson’s

那位大虾愿意帮忙解释一下？

B.  The logic in the stimuli contains a faulty analogy: Colson's opened, stores that competed with Colson's closed, new stores opened => same will happen after Spendless opens.

However, Colson's is a non-discount store; stores closed afterwards competed directly with Colson's, stored opened in their places are discount stores (i.e., they don't compete with Colson's directly).  SpendLess is a discount store, for any store opened afterwards, if it is a discount store, it will have to compete directly with SpendLess; if it is a non-discount store, it will have to compete directly with Colson's.  Therefore, the analogy is false, the conclusion from the analogy cannot be properly drawn.