Passenger volume in the airline industry has declined dramatically over the past two years, and thus fewer travelers ...
alicat6June 27, 2020
Breaking a Conditional Rule?
I am having trouble understanding how A is the correct answer when there is a conditional rule in the passage. To me, the statement "Since airport expansion can be warranted only by increases in air traffic volume..." is a conditional, AE > IATV.
Is this not a conditional? And, wouldn't answer choice A break the conditional rule? I was going through the answer choices with this conditional in mind, and all of them seemed to break the conditional.
Can you provide some guidance on how to solve questions like this? When is it okay to break conditionals? If "only" was never stated in this passage, I would have picked A quickly. But I got confused with this wording.
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Is B correct because it references passenger volume opposed to air traffic volume?
shunheJune 27, 2020
Hi @alicat6,
Thanks for the question! This one’s kind of a weird one. So first off, yes, you can diagram that sentence “since airport expansion…” as a conditional. However, it should be diagrammed as “AEW (airport expansion is warranted) —> IATV” instead.
However, we don’t really need to deal with the conditional logic for this question. To recap the stimulus, we know that passenger volume’s gone down, and fewer passengers are using airport. Also, airport expansion can be warranted only by increases in air traffic volume, which probably won’t happen in 5 years. So it’s surprising that airports are expanding now.
Now we’re asked for a reason that airports are planning to do their expansions now. It doesn’t matter if it “breaks the conditional,” as long as it gives the airports a reason to do so, it’s going to be right answer. Maybe they’re not warranted now in doing so, but it doesn’t matter, they’re still doing it. And we need to figure out why. (B), unlike the other answer choices, provides an explanation. It avoids another negative of expansion, inconveniencing the public. And that’s all this question is asking for, some reason for the airports to be expanding now rather than later. So (B) is the correct answer choice here.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
