In order to relieve traffic congestion

Answer choices

1. A

   Deepens Paradox8% picked this

   Most people who work in the downtown area of Gastner commute from one of

   If most downtown workers are commuting from the 'burbs, then the effect of the new highway should be making their lives / commutes better. After all, the highway's purpose was to better link suburbs to downtown. So this answer makes us even more confused how commute time has gotten worse for these workers.

   8%
2. B

   Deepens Paradox, if anything7% picked this

   The location of the new highway is most convenient for people who commute to and

   The fact that the highway is most convenient to people in the largest suburbs means that we can expect a lot of people will want to use this new highway. That should decrease traffic congestion on the roads people used to use to get from suburbs to downtown, and thus commuting times should be going down. This doesn't give us any reason to explain why commuting got worse for downtown workers. It seems to either not have anything to with them, or it sounds like it's a positive for them.

   7%
3. C

   No Impact11% picked this

   Shortly after the new highway was opened, several suburban roads connecting to the new highway were

   This is a tempting answer for a lot of us, because it shows something else that's changed since the highway was opened, and the idea of new stoplights sounds like something that could explain increased commuting time. But it sounds from the phrase upgraded with new stoplights like these intersections already had stoplights, and those were swapped out and replaced with new ones. In order for commuting time to be made worse, we want to believe that there used to be no stoplight at an intersection, and now there is one. But replacing a stoplight with an upgraded, new one doesn't have any common sense connection to slowing down traffic flow.

   11%
4. D

   Wrong Timeframe9% picked this

   At the same time the new highway was being built, road repair work was being done on important

   This is talking about stuff prior to the highway opening (when it was still being built). We're looking for something else that changed once the highway opened.

   9%
5. E

   Correct64% picked this

   In Gastner’s downtown area, traffic on the roads near the new highway became more congested after the

   Why this is right

   This is telling us something else that changed once the highway was opened. That something, "traffic became more congested", definitely sounds like it could cause increased commute times. It's not a very compelling correct answer, but it's hard to make an argument that any other answer choice does more than this one to help explain the increase in commuting time. I think the test writers want us to picture lower Manhattan, where traffic near the Lincoln and Holland tunnels (the highways leading out of downtown) gets really, really congested. This answer is also intended, I think, to allow for the idea that people coming from the suburbs might now be able to get to downtown faster, but for the workers in the downtown area, the local traffic situation has gotten worse, because now there are these big queues of cars waiting to get on / off the highway.

   Skill tested: Paradox · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   64%