hard · GRE Verbal

An analyst notes that coffee shops located near universities show faster revenue growth than the citywide average and proposes that university foot traffic drives the growth. The analyst does not examine whether both university areas and the fastest-growing coffee shops simply happen to sit in the city's densest, highest-growth neighborhoods generally. Which statement can be properly inferred from the passage?

1. University foot traffic is confirmed as the sole driver of the faster revenue growth and no other neighborhood-level factor could plausibly contribute to the pattern
2. A shared factor, such as general neighborhood density, could account for both patterns instead
3. Coffee shops away from universities never experience revenue growth
4. The citywide average growth rate is inaccurately measured
5. Every coffee shop near a university will outperform the citywide average

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