although the discount stores in Goreville's central shopping  district are expected to close within five yearsa as a result of competition from a Spendless discount department store that just opened,those locations will not stay vacant for long.In the five years since the opening of Closon's,a nondiscount department store, a new store has opened at the location of every store in the shopping district that closed because it could not compete with Closon's.

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

A. Many customers of Colson’s are expected to do less shopping there than they did before the SpendLess store opened.

B. Increasingly, the stores that have opened in the central shopping district since Colson’s opened have been discount stores.

C. At present, the central shopping district has as many stores operating in it as it ever had.

D. Over the course of the next five years, it is expected that Goreville’s population will grow at a faster rate than it has for the past several decades.

E. Many stores in the central shopping district sell types of merchandise that are not available at either SpendLess or Colson’s.

答案是B

顺便帮忙解释下，文章的后半部分C的例子是怎么证明argument的啊?不懂。

LZ应该是问closon's的例子  不是C选项吧

原文用了对比：

论点：Spendless discount department store 引起一些其他店关闭，但这些店很快又会被重新开起来。原因是Closon's，a nondiscount department store 引起的其他一些店的关闭，那些店都又重新开了。

所以要找weaken,可以从Spendless discount department store和Closon's二者的差异入手。

选项B说了Closon's附近又开起了的是discount department store。

而Closon's是nondiscount department store，所以这个可能是他们能重新开起来的原因。这样就削弱了原文的对比的推断。

不知道有没有解释清楚~

 谢谢楼上两位

特别谢谢3楼啊~解释的很清楚啊，跟OG思路一样，我之前光看OG解释就没看懂

还有一个问题, 那如果按B的说法的话,G旁边就会开nondiscount stores，那么就没有weaken啊...

我是不是想复杂了...

是根据时态判断出的结论和原因吗？

are expected to close  对未来的预测 结论

In the five years since the opening of Closon's   已经发生了的 原因

不知道对不对