Of the people who moved from one state to another when they retired, the proportion who retired to SunState has decreased by 10 percent over the past five years. Since many local businesses in SunState cater to retirees, this decline is likely to have a noticeably negative economic effect on these businesses.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

1. SunState attracts more people who move from one state to another when they retire than does any other state.
2. There are far more local businesses in SunState that cater to tourists than there are local businesses that cater to retirees.
3. The number of retirees who have moved out of SunState to accept re-employment in other states has increased over the past five years.
4. SunState has lower property taxes than any other state, making the state a magnet for retirees.
5. The total number of people who retired and moved to another state for their retirement has increased significantly over the past five years.

I chose "3", when the corrrect answer is 5. I missed it because I did not
read "these" in the question.

One of the things that threw me off in the correct answer choice is the
the phrase "who retired and moved to ANOTHER state". I assumed that
to be some state other than SUNSTATE. Should the wording of the
choice have been "who retired and moved to SOME state" ? or I just
got trapped :)?

I think you just got trapped :-)

For one thing, it helps to read on: (E) talks about "people who retired and moved to another state for their retirement" This relates directly to the premise, which refers to the same folks as "the people who moved from one state to another when they retired." "Another state" can be taken to mean "different from the state in which they previously lived" NOT "different from SunState."

Regardless, (C) strengthens the argument that businesses in SunState will suffer (whether or not you catch the "these" indicating businesses that cater to retirees), because (C) indicates a migration out of the state.

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Emily Sledge
Instructor
ManhattanGMAT

This was the hard one I got wrong :)

The stimulus says, "the proportion of overall retirees who moved to the State declined"
E rightly weakens this statement by stating, "this is just a reflection of the greater number of movers, and smaller proportion does not necessarily mean less in absolute terms"

I'll amend that only slightly, just to show that it is not truly a "reflection" of the fact that more retirees are moving, but rather another premise entirely, and one that minimizes the effect that the lower percentage will have.

In other words, perhaps the percentage drops from 10% to 8%. But if the overall number increases by 20%, then there will still be a larger number of overall retirees moving into the area.

I knoW E is the answer. But isn't weaking the argument to an extent

sorry - what's your question? i don't understand.

I made the same problem. I thought "moved to another state" meant from Sunstate to another state. If "some state" or "new state" had been used, I would not have been thrown off.

I went with 1.

3 & 5 are strengthing the argument

If you explain why you thought 1 weakened the argument, I can try to help you understand where you went wrong.

Answer E weakens the argument. The argument says
(1) Premise: There are a bunch of people who retire and move to another state. Of those, the proportion that choose Sunstate has gone down.
(2) Claim: This represents a decline in the actual number of retirees moving to Sunstate.

Not so fast. Be very wary of any CR attempt to equate percentages or proportions with actual numbers!

5 years ago, there were 100 people who retired and moved to another state. Of those, 20 moved to Sunstate, for a proportion of 20%.

Now, there are 10,000 people who retired and moved to another state. The previous 20% proportion who moved to Sunstate has declined 10% - so the new proportion is 18%. Is 18% of 10,000 bigger or smaller than the 20 people who moved to Sunstate 5 years ago?

There's the flaw. And answer choice E calls the flaw out by saying that the raw number of retirees has "increased significantly." This opens up the possibility (illustrated by the numbers above) that although the proportion of retirees moving to Sunstate has declined, the actual number of people moving has increased - in which case, no problem for the local businesses!

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Stacey Koprince
Instructor
Director of Online Community
ManhattanGMAT

Stacey, I can see your reasoning behind why E is correct a classic GMAT ratio versus number problem. But E requires a lot of thinking to see that through, i would be interested why A is wrong because if i don't carefully think and rethink about E, i would opt for A with the same argument that the actual number overwhelm the ratio.

A would have been correct if it say that Sunstate attract more people and more people retired .. But it says that sunstate sttract more people .. just think that this year ver few people got retired then what.. hardly matter because if there are less retired people then means that less people will attract
take example everyyear retired 100 and Sunstate attracts 80 But if only 20 people retired then sunstate at max will attract 20 but its very less..

As E state more people get retired and more will be go to sunstate and business wont be impacted..

its fine ?

Stacey, thanks for the clear explanation. It helped.

Glad it helped!

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Ben Ku
Instructor
ManhattanGMAT

Here is another explanation:
E is the correct answer because if the total number of people that are moving to another state upon retiring increased significantly, then the evidence given in the argument is considerably weakened. For example, if the total number has doubled, from 500 to 1000 people. And say the original proportion who moved to SunState was 40%. Then the number retiring to SunState has in fact increased from 200 to 360 people. Therefore the economic effect on the businesses that cater to retirees will in fact be positive.

Thanks, cmtorres..

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Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor