Bicycle sharing systems allow users to rent a bicycle at one location within a city and return it to any...
GMAT Craft and Structure : (Structure) Questions
Bicycle sharing systems allow users to rent a bicycle at one location within a city and return it to any other designated location in that city, which can cause serious problems of bicycle supply and user demand within the city's system. Tohru Ikeguchi uses open-source data and statistical modeling to identify when a high number of users making one-way trips is likely to leave some locations within the system ________ bicycles and other areas with insufficient supply.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
susceptible to
contingent on
saturated with
depleted of
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Part A: Create Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| "Bicycle sharing systems allow users to rent a bicycle at one location within a city and return it to any other designated location in that city" |
|
| "which can cause serious problems of bicycle supply and user demand within the city's system." |
|
| "Tohru Ikeguchi uses open-source data and statistical modeling to identify when a high number of users making one-way trips" |
|
| "is likely to leave some locations within the system _______ bicycles" |
|
| "and other areas with insufficient supply." |
|
Part B: Provide Passage Architecture and Core Elements
Main Point: Tohru Ikeguchi uses data analysis to predict when bicycle sharing systems will experience location-based supply imbalances.
Argument Flow: The passage first explains how bike sharing works and why it creates problems, then introduces Ikeguchi's data-driven approach to predicting these supply and demand imbalances across different locations.
Step 2: Interpret the Question Precisely
This is a fill-in-the-blank question asking us to choose the best logical connector. The answer must create the right relationship between what comes before and after the blank.
Step 3: Prethink the Answer
- Looking at our passage analysis, we see that one-way trips create an imbalance where "some locations" have [BLANK] bicycles while "other areas" have "insufficient supply."
- This creates a clear contrast - if some areas don't have enough bikes, then logically other areas must have too many bikes.
- The missing word needs to describe locations that have an excess or overabundance of bicycles, creating the opposite situation from areas with "insufficient supply."
susceptible to
✗ Incorrect
- This would mean "likely to be affected by bicycles," which doesn't make logical sense and doesn't create the needed contrast with "insufficient supply."
contingent on
✗ Incorrect
- This would mean "dependent on bicycles," which doesn't fit the context. The sentence structure requires a word describing the relationship between locations and bicycles, not dependency.
saturated with
✓ Correct
- "Saturated with" means filled with or having an excess of something. Creates perfect logical contrast: some locations have too many bikes while others have too few. Matches our prethinking about locations having an overabundance of bicycles.
depleted of
✗ Incorrect
- This would mean "lacking" or "having too few bicycles." Would make both parts of the sentence say the same thing (lacking bikes vs. insufficient supply), eliminating the logical contrast the sentence requires.