Urban planner Marcus Rodriguez encountered substantial obstacles while developing green space initiatives for his city in the early 2010s. Community...
GMAT Craft and Structure : (Structure) Questions
Urban planner Marcus Rodriguez encountered substantial obstacles while developing green space initiatives for his city in the early 2010s. Community surveys and public meetings, the standard methods for gathering resident input, were producing incomplete data because they primarily captured responses from older, affluent residents who had time to attend daytime meetings. Rodriguez recognized that this skewed input was leading to park designs that didn't serve the city's diverse population. By implementing multilingual online platforms, evening community sessions, and partnerships with local community organizations, Rodriguez successfully expanded participation to include working families, recent immigrants, and younger residents. This comprehensive approach resulted in park designs that better reflected the community's actual needs and demographics.
Which choice best describes the overall structure of the text?
It outlines a successful policy implementation, then traces how that success influenced similar projects.
It identifies shortcomings in community engagement methods, then argues that planners should rely on professional expertise instead.
It presents a planning challenge and describes how new approaches led to improved outcomes.
It details the benefits of traditional community engagement, then explains why an urban planner eventually abandoned these approaches.
Step 1: Decode and Map the Passage
Create Passage Analysis Table
| Text from Passage | Analysis |
|---|---|
| "Urban planner Marcus Rodriguez encountered substantial obstacles while developing green space initiatives for his city in the early 2010s." |
|
| "Community surveys and public meetings, the standard methods for gathering resident input, were producing incomplete data because they primarily captured responses from older, affluent residents who had time to attend daytime meetings." |
|
| "Rodriguez recognized that this skewed input was leading to park designs that didn't serve the city's diverse population." |
|
| "By implementing multilingual online platforms, evening community sessions, and partnerships with local community organizations, Rodriguez successfully expanded participation to include working families, recent immigrants, and younger residents." |
|
| "This comprehensive approach resulted in park designs that better reflected the community's actual needs and demographics." |
|
Provide Passage Architecture & Core Elements
Main Point: An urban planner overcame biased community engagement by implementing more inclusive methods, resulting in park designs that better served his city's diverse population.
Argument Flow: The passage follows a classic problem-solution-result structure. We first learn about Rodriguez's challenge with getting representative community input, then see how he recognized and addressed this problem through innovative engagement strategies, and finally discover that these new approaches led to more effective park designs.
Step 2: Interpret the Question Precisely
What's being asked? We need to identify the overall structure of the text - how the author organized and sequenced the information.
What type of answer do we need? A description of the passage's structural pattern or organizational framework.
Any limiting keywords? "Overall structure" tells us we're looking at the big picture organization, not specific details or purposes.
Step 3: Prethink the Answer
- Looking at our structure map, we can see the passage follows a clear pattern: it starts by presenting Rodriguez with a specific challenge (biased community engagement), then shows how he developed and implemented new approaches to solve this problem, and finally demonstrates that these solutions worked
- The right answer should capture this problem-to-solution-to-success progression
It outlines a successful policy implementation, then traces how that success influenced similar projects.
✗ Incorrect
- Claims the text outlines a "successful policy implementation" first, but the passage actually starts with obstacles and challenges
- Says it traces influence on "similar projects," but the passage only discusses Rodriguez's single initiative
- Gets the sequence backwards - success comes at the end, not the beginning
It identifies shortcomings in community engagement methods, then argues that planners should rely on professional expertise instead.
✗ Incorrect
- Correctly identifies that shortcomings in engagement methods are discussed
- Completely wrong about the conclusion - the passage shows Rodriguez improving community engagement, not arguing to abandon it for "professional expertise"
- This choice might tempt students who focus only on the first part of the passage about problems with community input, missing that Rodriguez actually enhanced community engagement rather than replacing it
It presents a planning challenge and describes how new approaches led to improved outcomes.
✓ Correct
- Accurately captures that the passage "presents a planning challenge" (the biased community input problem)
- Correctly identifies that it "describes how new approaches led to improved outcomes" (the multilingual platforms, evening sessions, and partnerships resulting in better park designs)
- Matches our prethinking perfectly - problem, solution, positive results
It details the benefits of traditional community engagement, then explains why an urban planner eventually abandoned these approaches.
✗ Incorrect
- Claims the text "details the benefits of traditional community engagement," but the passage actually highlights the problems with traditional methods
- Says Rodriguez "abandoned these approaches," but he actually expanded and improved community engagement rather than abandoning it
- Gets both the beginning and ending wrong