City streets often generate high levels of noise and air pollution, creating stressful conditions for residents. Urban planners have found...
GMAT Craft and Structure : (Structure) Questions
City streets often generate high levels of noise and air pollution, creating stressful conditions for residents. Urban planners have found that incorporating green spaces like parks and tree-lined walkways into neighborhoods can significantly reduce these environmental stressors. These natural elements filter pollutants and absorb sound. This helps create a more _____ living environment where residents can find relief from urban pressures.
Which choice completes the text with the most logical and precise word or phrase?
innovative
serene
expensive
crowded
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| 'City streets often generate high levels of noise and air pollution, creating stressful conditions for residents.' |
|
| 'Urban planners have found that incorporating green spaces like parks and tree-lined walkways into neighborhoods can significantly reduce these environmental stressors.' |
|
| 'These natural elements filter pollutants and absorb sound.' |
|
| 'living environment where residents can find relief from urban pressures.' |
|
Passage Architecture & Core Elements
Main Point: Green spaces in urban areas reduce environmental stressors and create better living conditions for residents.
Argument Flow: The passage establishes urban environmental problems, presents green spaces as a solution planners have discovered, explains the mechanism by which green spaces work, and concludes with the beneficial outcome for residents.
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
- The word needs to describe the type of living environment that results from reduced noise, reduced air pollution, and relief from urban pressures
- The logical progression shows stressful conditions leading to green spaces reducing stressors and creating a better environment
- So the missing word should capture the opposite of stressful - something indicating calm, peace, or tranquility
innovative
- Innovative means new or creative
- Does not connect to the environmental benefits described
- The passage focuses on stress reduction, not innovation
serene
- Serene means peaceful, calm, and tranquil
- Perfectly captures the result of reduced noise and pollution
- Creates clear contrast with the stressful conditions mentioned at the beginning
- Matches the idea of relief from urban pressures
expensive
- Expensive relates to cost
- No connection established between green spaces and higher costs in this context
- Does not follow logically from the environmental benefits described
crowded
- Crowded means full of people
- Contradicts the concept of relief from urban pressures
- Students might think parks attract people, but the passage focuses on environmental benefits, not usage patterns