Evidence & Arguments

Correct answer: B. The city should eliminate fares on its bus system.

Why: Paragraph 1 states the claim in one sentence. Every paragraph that follows is a reason for it or a limitation on it.

Every choice, explained

• A.Fare collection costs more than most people realize. — A reason offered in paragraph 2, not the claim.
• B.The city should eliminate fares on its bus system. — Correct. It is the position the rest of the passage argues for.
• C.Boarding is the slowest part of a bus route. — A supporting detail inside the speed argument.
• D.Free fares increase ridership in every system that has tried them. — A reason in paragraph 4 — and one whose support the passage never provides.

Correct answer: B. One transit agency that removed fares on a downtown route reported that average trip times fell by roughly nine percent.

Why: The claim is about speed. Only this option reports a measured change in trip time after fares were removed.

Every choice, explained

• A.Fare boxes must be maintained and revenue must be transported. — Supports the cost-of-collection reason, not the speed reason.
• B.One transit agency that removed fares on a downtown route reported that average trip times fell by roughly nine percent. — Correct. A measured outcome on the exact variable the claim concerns.
• C.Every system that has tried free fares has seen ridership grow. — Ridership is a different outcome. More riders could in principle slow boarding, not speed it.
• D.A friend stopped driving entirely after her city made buses free. — An anecdote about one person's driving, unrelated to trip times.

Correct answer: C. Paragraph 5, because a single friend's experience is treated as proof of a general pattern

Why: Paragraph 5 is the clearest case of anecdote standing in for evidence: one person's behavior, presented with "which shows," as though it established a general rule. Paragraph 4 is also weak — an unsupported "every system" claim — but paragraph 5 explicitly asks a single story to do the work of data.

Every choice, explained

• A.Paragraph 2, because the costs of fare collection are hard to measure — Paragraph 2 names specific, checkable costs. It is among the better-supported paragraphs.
• B.Paragraph 4, because it makes a sweeping claim about every system with no evidence attached — A genuine weakness — "every system" is a sweeping claim — but paragraph 5 is the weaker of the two, because it presents one anecdote as proof.
• C.Paragraph 5, because a single friend's experience is treated as proof of a general pattern — Correct. "Which shows" asks one friend's experience to establish a pattern it cannot establish.
• D.Paragraph 6, because it undermines the author's own argument — Paragraph 6 acknowledges a limitation honestly. Naming an unanswered objection is a strength in an argument, not weak support.

Model response: The author would need evidence about how the lost fare revenue would be replaced — for example, figures showing what share of the operating budget fares actually cover, and a specific funding source that could cover the gap. Evidence from a comparable city that eliminated fares and sustained service afterward would also strengthen the case. Without that, the argument establishes benefits but never shows that the plan is affordable.

Why: A sufficient argument has to address the strongest objection to it. Here that means showing where replacement revenue comes from, with figures rather than assurances.

Correct answer: B. The city should lease its long-unsold vacant lots to neighborhood groups as community gardens.

Why: The last sentence of paragraph 1 states the position: "The city should lease these lots to neighborhood groups as community gardens, starting with every lot that has gone unsold for more than two years." Paragraphs 2 through 4 each give a reason for it, paragraph 5 answers an objection to it, and the final sentence restates it.

Every choice, explained

• A.Vacant lots cost the city money to mow, fence, and clean up. — A reason from paragraph 2. It explains why the author wants the change; it is not the change itself.
• B.The city should lease its long-unsold vacant lots to neighborhood groups as community gardens. — Correct. It is the position that every other paragraph either supports or defends.
• C.Community gardens can end grocery bills for the families who work them. — An overstated version of the food reason in paragraph 3. It is support the author offers, not the position that support is for.
• D.The city should hold its vacant lots for developers who will build housing. — This is the objection the author answers in paragraph 5 — the opposite of the author's position.

Correct answer: C. According to the pilot's first-year report, crews were sent to those twelve lots 140 times in the year before the gardens opened and 9 times in the year after, because the gardeners now handle the mowing and cleanup themselves.

Why: Restate the answer you gave to the previous question: the city should turn its long-unsold lots into gardens. The best support is evidence about gardens on the city's own lots, with a named source and numbers you could check. The pilot report's before-and-after count of crew visits is the only choice that does all three, and it shows the change the author wants already working on twelve lots.

Every choice, explained

• A.Loretta Banks, a home health aide with a pilot plot, grows enough tomatoes, peppers, and greens that she has not bought a vegetable from June through September. — The most vivid sentence in the passage, and that is the trap. It is one gardener's summer — an anecdote standing in for evidence — and it cannot show what gardens would do across the city.
• B.Some council members object that the lots should be kept ready for developers, since new housing would bring in property taxes that a garden never will. — This sentence states the objection. It supports the opposite position, holding the lots for developers, not the author's claim.
• C.According to the pilot's first-year report, crews were sent to those twelve lots 140 times in the year before the gardens opened and 9 times in the year after, because the gardeners now handle the mowing and cleanup themselves. — Correct. It names a source, gives before-and-after numbers, and describes gardens on the city's own lots, so it bears directly on the claim.
• D.Until then, the city should let its neighbors put the empty lots to work. — This restates the claim in new words. A claim cannot support itself.

Correct answer: A. "Every pilot lease lets the city end it with sixty days' notice." (paragraph 5) • D. "When a builder bought one of the twelve lots last spring, the garden group harvested its last crop and cleared the lot before the deadline." (paragraph 5)

Why: Restate the point first: a garden would not get in the way of a sale. Two details bear on exactly that — the lease term that lets the city take a lot back, and the one time a pilot lot was actually sold. The crew-visit numbers are the strongest evidence in the whole passage, but they support a different point, which is why they are the most tempting wrong answer.

Every choice, explained

• A."Every pilot lease lets the city end it with sixty days' notice." (paragraph 5) — Correct. It shows the city keeps the power to take a lot back for a buyer on short notice.
• B."crews were sent to those twelve lots 140 times in the year before the gardens opened and 9 times in the year after" (paragraph 2) — Strong evidence, but for a different point: it shows that gardens cut the city's cleanup costs. It says nothing about whether a lot can still be sold.
• C."new housing would bring in property taxes that a garden never will" (paragraph 5) — This is part of the objection. It gives a reason to sell the lots, not a reason to believe a garden would allow a sale.
• D."When a builder bought one of the twelve lots last spring, the garden group harvested its last crop and cleared the lot before the deadline." (paragraph 5) — Correct. It shows the lease term working in practice: a lot was sold, and the gardeners left on time.
• E."she has not bought a vegetable from June through September" (paragraph 3) — One gardener's harvest, offered for the food reason in paragraph 3. It has nothing to do with selling a lot.

Correct answer: D. The county survey of residents who live near a public park

Why: Restate the claim in paragraph 4 first: gardens bring neighbors together. The survey is about parks, not gardens, so at most it supports a claim about parks — and even then it shows only that living near a park and trusting neighbors go together, not that one causes the other. The author closes the gap with an assumption, that a garden "would do the same work," rather than with evidence.

Every choice, explained

• A.The pilot report's count of crew visits to the twelve lots before and after the gardens opened — This supports exactly the point it is used for — that gardens save the city money. It is relevant, measured, and sourced.
• B.Loretta Banks's summer harvest from her pilot plot — Weak support, but for the right claim: it really is about a garden producing food. Its problem is sufficiency — one gardener cannot show what would happen across the city — not relevance.
• C.The builder who bought one of the pilot lots last spring — This supports exactly the point it is used for — that a garden does not block a sale.
• D.The county survey of residents who live near a public park — Correct. The survey measures something about parks, and the author stretches it to cover gardens. It supports a nearby claim, about parks, that the author did not make.

Model response: The strongest support is the pilot's first-year report, which found that crew visits to the twelve garden lots fell from 140 to 9 in a year, and the author also answers the developer objection with the sixty-day lease term and a lot that was actually sold. The other two reasons fall short: the food reason rests on one gardener's summer, and the neighbor reason rests on a survey about parks rather than gardens. Even the best evidence covers only twelve lots over a single year. The evidence is sufficient for a narrower claim, that gardens save the city money without blocking sales, but not for the author's promise that gardens would lower grocery bills and build trust across the city.

Why: A complete answer does three jobs: it credits the support that holds up, names the specific weakness in the support that does not — an anecdote standing in for evidence, or evidence about a different claim — and reaches a judgment that fits the evidence. The strongest answers notice that the evidence supports a narrower claim than the one the author makes. Judging the evidence insufficient is not the same as calling the claim false; the question is only whether the author supported it.