Identify Line of Reasoning Practice Test

Read the following embedded passage and answer the question.

When a museum raises ticket prices to cover rising costs, it often assumes it is simply charging visitors what the experience is “worth.” But pricing changes behavior, not just revenue. A higher price filters out casual visitors, which lowers attendance. Lower attendance makes the museum look less relevant to donors and city leaders, which can reduce grants and sponsorships. To compensate, the museum raises prices again, aiming to make up the difference with fewer visitors paying more. The result is a spiral in which the museum becomes both less accessible and less stable. A better approach is to separate access from fundraising: keep a low base price or free hours to maintain broad attendance, then build voluntary membership tiers and targeted donor campaigns that appeal to people who want to support the mission. When the museum treats visitors as a community to grow rather than a pool to extract from, financial support becomes more resilient.

The passage's line of reasoning can best be described as…

In a city newsletter, an author argues: “Our buses are late not because drivers are careless but because the system is designed to fail. When a route is scheduled with no buffer, one long wheelchair boarding or a single traffic jam pushes every subsequent stop behind. Riders, uncertain the bus will come, start driving instead; that adds cars to the same streets the bus must use, slowing buses further. As buses grow less reliable, the transit agency loses fare revenue and cuts frequency, which increases wait times and makes the service even less usable. The fix is not a scolding campaign; it is a schedule redesign with recovery time at key stops and dedicated bus lanes on the most congested corridors. Reliability would keep riders on transit, reduce traffic, and protect revenue so frequency can rise rather than fall.” The author develops the argument by…