A GMAT Strengthen Trap: How Hard a Plan Is to Implement Doesn't Matter

When a GMAT Strengthen conclusion is about whether a plan will succeed once it is in place, information about how easy or hard the plan is to implement cannot move your belief either way. This post breaks down the Implementation Trap using an Official GMAT question on airport delays, and why a negative conclusion makes an obstacle look like support when it is not.

This GMAT Critical Reasoning Strengthen question opens, "Only a reduction of 10 percent in the number of scheduled flights using Greentown's airport will allow the delays that are so common there to be avoided," and it is built around a trap worth meeting on an easy question, because it shows up everywhere later.

Suppose an argument concludes something about whether a plan, if implemented, will succeed. The plan, once in place, will work. Now a choice comes along telling you the plan would be easy to implement, or telling you it would be hard. Can that strengthen the conclusion?

It cannot. Our conclusion has already assumed the plan is implemented. That is the starting point of the claim. The conclusion will not be valid if the plan is not implemented for any reason. So whether implementing it is easy or difficult is a question the conclusion has already moved past. The conclusion is not asking whether the plan can be put in place. It is asking what happens once it is. Thus, any piece of information about the effort, cost, or difficulty of implementation does not impact the chances of its success, once implemented. So it cannot raise or lower your belief in what the plan does afterward.

The question setup

Greentown airport suffers from chronic delays, and avoiding them would require cutting its scheduled flights by 10 percent. A nearby airstrip, Hevelia, could be upgraded into a full-service airport, and if it were, it can draw away a share of Greentown's passengers. The conclusion is the experts' position: even after Hevelia is turned into a full-service airport, the chronic delays at Greentown would not end. You are asked to justify that position, which means strengthening the claim that the conversion would not end the delays.

Notice the shape of that conclusion. It assumes Hevelia has been turned into a full-service airport, and it claims that even so, the delays would remain. This is a negative conclusion, the plan will not succeed, and that is exactly what makes the trap here easy to fall into. When the conclusion is that a plan fails, an obstacle to the plan feels like it belongs on the same side. A difficulty reads as support.

The Implementation Trap

Now consider answer choice A, which says that converting Hevelia into a full-service airport would take major construction at the site along with new access highways.

Choice A tells you the conversion would be a major undertaking, a lot of construction, new highways, real difficulty. Because the conclusion is negative, that difficulty feels like a reason on the experts' side. A student who reads the experts as opponents of the plan can take this obstacle as evidence for them.

But the experts are not arguing that the conversion is hard to do. Their claim assumes it has already been done. The conclusion is about what the finished airport accomplishes, not about how hard it was to build. Choice A speaks entirely to the building. Whether that construction is easy or brutally difficult, the conclusion has already moved past it and is asking what the converted airport does about Greentown's delays. So the difficulty of implementation has no bearing on whether the implemented plan works. The negative conclusion made the obstacle look like an ally, but it was never touching the actual claim.

This is the trap. When the conclusion is that a plan, once in place, will or will not succeed, information about the implementation being easy or hard cannot strengthen or weaken it. The conclusion has stipulated the plan into existence. With a negative conclusion the danger is sharper, because an obstacle sounds supportive, but the principle holds in both directions: ease and difficulty of implementation are both off the table once success-after-implementation is the question.

The correct answer

The correct choice says that several airlines use Greentown as a regional hub, so most flights landing there carry many passengers who then catch connecting flights onward to their final destinations. This one does the work. If many of Greentown's passengers are connecting through it to catch onward flights, they have a reason to keep using Greentown rather than switch to Hevelia, since switching would mean traveling to Hevelia and then back to Greentown for the connection. That makes it more believable that the converted Hevelia would not pull enough traffic away to end the delays. New information, aimed at what the finished plan does, raising belief in the conclusion. It does not prove the conclusion, it gives no exact numbers, but a strengthener does not have to prove. It has to move belief, and this does.

The habit this builds

The discipline this question builds is to read the conclusion for what it has already assumed before you judge any choice. When a conclusion is about a plan succeeding once implemented, mark implementation as settled, and then refuse to be moved by any choice that only speaks to how hard or easy the implementation is, no matter how naturally it seems to fit the side the conclusion is on.

On easy questions, the implementation choice is usually visible once you ask what the conclusion has already taken as given, as it is here with the construction-and-highways detail sitting plainly outside the "after conversion" frame. On harder questions, the implementation detail will be woven in so it reads like a reason the plan fails on the merits, and you will only separate the two if you are in the habit of pinning down what the conclusion assumes before you evaluate. Building that habit on a clear case is what makes it available when it is not.

Series context

This question is part of the Strengthen Beginner Series, in which easy Official GMAT questions are used not to test what you know, but to reveal how you think. Each question targets a specific reasoning habit, one that shows up in a simple form on easy questions and a complex one on hard questions. If you are getting started with Strengthen questions or if Strengthen questions feel inconsistent for you, this series is built to show you exactly where the process is breaking down.

Solve the question on your own first. The reasoning you apply matters more than the answer you reach.

Read about other Strengthen Traps and Tips:

1. One Habit That Changes How You Solve Strengthen Questions
2. Trap #1 - Additional Benefit
3. Trap #2 - Two-Way Answer
4. Trap #3 - Choice Supporting Premise
5. Trap #5 - Better Alternative Trap
6. Trap #6 - Not Action Trap

Take a free diagnostic quiz to see how your own process holds up on questions like this one.