medium · GMAT Verbal

A city official argued: A recent poll shows that most residents favor building a new public library. Some critics claim the library is unnecessary, but every one of those critics owns a large personal book collection and so would not benefit from a public library. Therefore, the critics' objection should be dismissed. The official's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

1. Presumes without any real support that a project favored by a majority of a city's residents must be a prudent use of public funds.
2. Treats the critics as a single unified group with one shared position even though those individuals may disagree among themselves.
3. Rejects the critics' argument by appealing to the critics' personal circumstances rather than addressing the substance of their objection.
4. Assumes that merely owning a large personal collection of books somehow makes a person a qualified expert on the genuine value of public libraries.
5. Fails to establish that the residents who responded to the recent poll were actually a representative sample of the city's overall population.

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