Urban community areas serve essential functions in city environments, frequently acting as central meeting locations that mirror local character and...
GMAT Information and Ideas : (Ideas) Questions
Urban community areas serve essential functions in city environments, frequently acting as central meeting locations that mirror local character and social interactions. Such roles have drawn urban planners' focus, as they aim to employ community area studies to gain deeper insights into housing distributions, commercial activities, demographic variety, and wellness indicators. While measuring social engagement in these spaces poses research challenges, developments in smartphone technology and computational analysis demonstrate promise for recording immediate behavioral data. Research projects that incorporate such technological advances might guide more adaptive city planning approaches.
Based on the passage, what is one motivation for urban planners to study community areas?
They are examining if community areas have experienced declining usage in recent times.
They believe thoughtfully planned areas would draw additional commercial enterprises to local districts.
They consider that such studies might uncover significant elements of city living.
They aspire to develop uniform planning templates for various community types.
I'll solve this step by step, following the complete solution creation process.
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Part A: Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| "Urban community areas serve essential functions in city environments, frequently acting as central meeting locations that mirror local character and social interactions." |
|
| "Such roles have drawn urban planners' focus, as they aim to employ community area studies to gain deeper insights into housing distributions, commercial activities, demographic variety, and wellness indicators." |
|
| "While measuring social engagement in these spaces poses research challenges, developments in smartphone technology and computational analysis demonstrate promise for recording immediate behavioral data." |
|
| "Research projects that incorporate such technological advances might guide more adaptive city planning approaches." |
|
Part B: Passage Architecture & Core Elements
Main Point: Urban planners study community areas because they want to gain deeper insights into various aspects of city living like housing, commercial activities, demographics, and health indicators.
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
- From our analysis, we know that planners are motivated to study community areas because they want to gain deeper insights into various aspects of city living
- The passage specifically mentions they want to understand "housing distributions, commercial activities, demographic variety, and wellness indicators"
- This shows they believe studying these areas will reveal important information about urban life
- The right answer should capture this idea that planners study community areas because they think these studies will uncover significant or important elements of how cities function and how people live in them
They are examining if community areas have experienced declining usage in recent times.
✗ Incorrect
- This choice focuses on "declining usage" but the passage never mentions anything about areas losing popularity or being used less
- The passage presents community areas as currently serving "essential functions," not as declining spaces
They believe thoughtfully planned areas would draw additional commercial enterprises to local districts.
✗ Incorrect
- This reverses the relationship described in the passage
- The passage says planners want to study existing "commercial activities," not that they're trying to attract new commercial enterprises
They consider that such studies might uncover significant elements of city living.
✓ Correct
- This directly matches what the passage tells us about planners' motivation
- The passage states planners "aim to employ community area studies to gain deeper insights into housing distributions, commercial activities, demographic variety, and wellness indicators"
- These insights into various aspects of city living are exactly the "significant elements of city living" mentioned in this choice
They aspire to develop uniform planning templates for various community types.
✗ Incorrect
- The passage never mentions creating "uniform planning templates" or standardizing approaches across different community types
- In fact, the passage emphasizes that areas "mirror local character," suggesting uniqueness rather than uniformity