The following text is adapted from a 2020 urban planning report.Modern cities face unprecedented challenges as populations surge and infrastructure...
GMAT Craft and Structure : (Structure) Questions
The following text is adapted from a 2020 urban planning report.
Modern cities face unprecedented challenges as populations surge and infrastructure ages. Transportation systems buckle under demand, housing shortages reach crisis levels, and environmental concerns mount with each passing year. Planners consistently advocate for comprehensive, long-term solutions that address multiple urban problems simultaneously through coordinated policy initiatives. However, implementation often requires immediate action on individual issues, even when such targeted interventions may not align with broader strategic visions.
Which choice best describes the function of the underlined statement in the text as a whole?
It explains why comprehensive urban planning has become more important in recent decades.
It identifies the specific problems that planners must address when developing policy initiatives.
It describes the preferred methodology that most urban planners use to approach city management.
It presents a practical constraint that complicates the idealized planning approach described earlier.
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Create Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| Modern cities face unprecedented challenges as populations surge and infrastructure ages. |
|
| Transportation systems buckle under demand, housing shortages reach crisis levels, and environmental concerns mount with each passing year. |
|
| Planners consistently advocate for comprehensive, long-term solutions that address multiple urban problems simultaneously through coordinated policy initiatives. |
|
| However, implementation often requires immediate action on individual issues, even when such targeted interventions may not align with broader strategic visions. |
|
Provide Passage Architecture and Core Elements
Main Point: Urban planners prefer comprehensive solutions to city problems, but practical implementation often forces them to take immediate actions on individual issues that may conflict with their broader strategic goals.
Argument Flow: The passage establishes urban challenges, then presents planners idealized comprehensive approach, and finally introduces the practical constraint that forces planners to act in ways that may undermine their preferred methodology.
Step 2: Interpret the Question Precisely
What's being asked? The function of the underlined statement within the text as a whole
What type of answer do we need? The role or purpose this specific statement serves in the overall passage structure
Any limiting keywords? underlined statement limits us to one specific sentence, and in the text as a whole means we need to consider how it fits with the entire passage flow
Step 3: Prethink the Answer
- The underlined statement starts with However, which signals a contrast with what came before
- Up to this point, we learned about urban problems and then the planners preferred solution approach (comprehensive, coordinated)
- The However statement introduces a reality that conflicts with this ideal - that implementation often requires immediate, individual actions that may not align with the bigger strategic vision
- So the right answer should identify this statement as introducing a practical limitation or constraint that complicates or conflicts with the idealized planning approach we just read about
It explains why comprehensive urban planning has become more important in recent decades.
- Says the statement explains why comprehensive planning became more important
- The statement actually shows a constraint on comprehensive planning, not why it is important
It identifies the specific problems that planners must address when developing policy initiatives.
- Claims the statement identifies specific problems planners must address
- The specific problems were already identified in the earlier sentences
It describes the preferred methodology that most urban planners use to approach city management.
- Suggests the statement describes planners preferred methodology
- The preferred methodology was described in the previous sentence
It presents a practical constraint that complicates the idealized planning approach described earlier.
- Accurately identifies that the statement presents a practical constraint that complicates the idealized approach described earlier