Which of the following most logically completes the passage?

A business analysis of the Appenian railroad system divided its long-distance passenger routes into two categories: rural routes and interurban routes. The analysis found that, unlike the interurban routes, few rural routes carried a high enough passenger volume to be profitable. Closing unprofitable rural routes, however, will not necessarily enhance the profitability of the whole system, since ________.

Answer Choices

Correct answer marked below

a large part of the passenger volume on interurban routes is accounted for by passengers who begin or end their journeys on rural routes

Correct

within the last two decades several of the least used rural routes have been closed and their passenger services have been replaced by buses

the rural routes were all originally constructed at least one hundred years ago, whereas some of the interurban routes were constructed recently for new high-speed express trains

not all of Appenia’s large cities are equally well served by interurban railroad services

the greatest passenger volume, relative to the routes’ capacity, is not on either category of long-distance routes but is on suburban commuter routes

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Comments

KonradAug 4

This one was pretty straightforward. The key is that closing rural routes might hurt interurban profitability because interurban passengers depend on rural routes. That's exactly what A says.

DikshaAug 15

Yeah, I got it too. But I initially thought B because it mentioned closing routes, but then I realized it doesn't explain why closing more wouldn't help profitability.

What this question tests

What it tests

Whether you can complete the last sentence of an argument in a way that is logically consistent with it.

Common trap

Choosing an option that sounds plausible but contradicts the argument or introduces new information.