新prep cr1 77

77.

Which of the following most logically completes the argument below?

Twenty percent of the stores in Morganville's downtown shopping district will fail within five years because they will be competing directly with the SaveMart discount department store newly opened in East Morganville. The downtown shopping district has lost business at this rate before and has always completely rebounded. Confidence that it will rebound again from the losses it is now about to suffer is ill founded, however, because __________.

A. the stores likely to be put out of business by direct competition from SaveMart are the downtown shopping district's anchor stores, on whose ability to draw shoppers many of the other downtown stores depend

B. the bus line that has long connected the downtown area of Morganville with East Morganville has a tradition of carrying shoppers who reside in East Morganville into downtown Morganville to shop

C. when the downtown shopping district has rebounded before, the business premises of a failed business were typically taken over by a business of the same kind as had been there before

D. SaveMart's business plan for the East Morganville store is based on earning low profits, if any, during the first five years of the store's existence

E. it is conceivable that the downtown shopping district could shrink substantially without collapsing altogether