#19 - It takes 365.25 days for the Earth to make one

[biskam]

I've read all of these explanations and I'm still really struggling to understand what exactly would happen if the seventh day ended up landing on a "no day." Looking at the December 2017 calendar, if sunday dec 31 was a no day, how do we deal? Do we skip over it? Is Monday Jan 1 then the 7th day?

I think I'm confused about the logistics in the stimulus...

THank you!

[James Finch]

Hi Biskam,

The stimulus is proposing that December 31st and the every-four-year leap day always be a day that does not belong to a week, so that all other dates would fall on the same days of the week every year, starting with Sunday, January 1st. That means that if this proposal were adopted, January 1st would always be a Sunday, the 2nd always a Monday, etc., and December 30th would always be a Saturday, with the 31st always being a "no-day."

Hope this clears up the stimulus!

[willmcchez]

Sheer curiosity:

How often to questions like this appear on the "modern" LSATs? As of the time of this posting, this question is almost 24 years old.

I feel like some serious outside knowledge is needed to answer this question in terms of how time and dates intersect.

Also, near the end of the stimulus, it states that "the last day of each year and an additional day every fourth year belonged to no week"

Does this imply that the days in question would bear no name whatsoever? e.g., Sunday -> Nameless Day -> Monday?

Thanks!

[Dave Killoran]

Hey Will,

Good question! As question go, this is certainly among the most unusual questions in LSAT history, which is saying quite a bit when you realize we are taking about thousands of LR questions. So, just on that basis alone, a question like this is generally rare. And, in this case, it's built on such a unique "logical formula" that duplication would be challenging just on that count.

As far as the "outside info," I don't know that I fully agree with you there. I don't think there's a special set of info that's required, but instead that the way it works together is so unexpected that that creates the difficulty as opposed to some little-known fact. Does that make sense? In any event, I think we are talking about the same idea, but in a different way.

And, in answer to your question about the last part:

Does this imply that the days in question would bear no name whatsoever? e.g., Sunday -> Nameless Day -> Monday?

The answer is yes. Those days would be these weird, uncountable "makeup holidays" that are like a blank space in a calendar but that are actual days. So they'd exist but they would be "extras" without a regular weekday name.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[T.B.Justin]

I thought that the people who have to plan events several years before those events occur would be most affected in regards to scheduling conflicts, since they would potentially have to arrange their schedules every leap year. However, they would likely not have a scheduling conflict, since they would know in advance that calendar year's operation.

I instinctually was drawn towards; that people who have birthdays or other anniversaries on December 30 or 31, since the last day of the year the 31st of December would not be available in a conventional week and I projected a personal feeling due to my birthday being on Dec. 30th, which is irrelevant to the stimulus, however the last day of the year in the proposed hypothetical would be the 30th and the 31st would not be available in the conventional week, so this would not cause an issue for those people.

I completely overlooked the fact that in the first year of the proposed hypothetical that Sunday would be the 7th day of the week, and that at the end of the first year due to the 31st not being an available day in that calendar year the subsequent year starts on Sunday January 1 and the first Saturday of that year being January 7. This would explain why employed people whose strict religious observances require that they refrain from working every 7th day are most likely to experience continued scheduling conflicts in this scenario, as the calendar cycle changed they would be required to adjust their schedule accordingly which likely could result in a conflict.

[Brook Miscoski]

Justin,

This is a very weird question. It should be approached as a must be true question in the sense that the stimulus will demonstrate a scheduling conflict for one of the groups of people in the answer choices.

A. The calendar dates would still exist.
B. Because everyone else would be calling Friday, Sabbath, or Sunday without reference to the 7 day cycle, religious observers would end up having schedule conflicts because their 7 day intervals would scroll around to workdays.
C. Can still count days.
D. Extra Sunday wouldn't be affected and occasional extra Monday is not on New Year.
E. Wouldn't affect planning ahead.

[villzilla]

Okay wait a second. I understand B. BUT--for answer A: if someone's birthday was on December 31, and then the plan was implemented, those individuals wouldn't experience scheduling conflicts to celebrate or something of the sort? I understand that the free days would follow December 30, but technically wouldn't December 31 no longer exist as a calendar date?

EDIT: I didn't notice this particular question had 3 forum pages so if this was answered, I apologize!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi villzilla,

You're absolutely right that December 31 would no longer be a traditional day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, or Sunday): it would be a "blank day." When the question stem refers to "scheduling conflicts," it's helpful to narrow the meaning of that phrase to the "scheduling problem" the proposal in the stimulus is explicitly designed to address: namely, the fact that "anniversaries [including birthdays] do not fall on the same day of the week each year."

To clarify for others (I think you've got this part of it): under the proposal, what would have to happen in a "non-leap year" year is that December 30 would be the 364th day of the year, and therefore a Saturday. As the 365th day every year, December 31 would be a "blank day." Every four years, December 31 would be followed by a second "blank day." Thus, December 30 would still exist, and always be a Saturday (no scheduling conflicts or problems in the sense the stimulus means) and December 31 would still exist and always be a blank day (no scheduling conflicts or problems in the sense the stimulus means).

Does that make sense? (Hopefully, and hopefully this helps!)

Jeremy

[litigationqueen]

Complete Question Explanation

Must be True. The correct answer choice is (B)

This is an all-time classic LSAT question, and a truly confusing one, so if you had trouble here do not despair!

The scenario described in the stimulus is very unusual. The proposal attempts to standardize the calendar so that the same date every year is on the same day. So, for example, if May 1st was a Saturday once the proposal was implemented, then it would always be a Saturday. This would be great for some things—your birthday would always be on the same day, and you wouldn't have to think about which day of the week it was on—it would always be the same (and let's hope it is on a Friday or Saturday

How would they accomplish this standardization? By adding one or two "free days" at the end of each calendar year. These days would essentially be unnumbered and undated, that is, they wouldn't be a Monday or a Thursday. Instead, they would be place holder days, a sort of free day. In this way, they can set January the 1st as a Sunday each year—and then it stays that way, forever. To make it happen that way it also means that December 31st isn't really the day before January 1st—there is a free day or two in-between. The calendar each year starts on Sunday, January first, and plays out regularly until they get to December 30th, and then they add in the one or two free days they need to balance with the orbital cycle.

The stimulus does not make it clear whether these no-man's-land days would be a working day or a vacation day. But one would imagine that for practical sake that they would end up being holidays.


Answer choice (A): Under the scheme, December 30th would always be a Saturday and December 31st would always be a no-man's-land day. This should not present any scheduling conflict because December 30th celebrators would still have their usual date, and the former December 31st celebrators would now have the first "free day" as their birthday. Since every year has a free day, their "birthday" is now just going by a different name.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. These people would have a conflict. In the first year of the scheme, this group of people would be fine during the first year this is implemented. Every seventh day they would take off, probably on Saturday or Sunday depending on their religion. But, what happens to this group at the end of the year? Those "free days" are still actual days, so they count for religious purposes, but they aren't on the calendar. So, all of sudden, in the second year when this group goes to take every seventh day off, they are now taking every Friday (or maybe Thursday—it depends on how this aligns). That's not really going to work over time, and it gets worse the next year, when they then have to count in more free days at the end of year 2. Eventually it comes back around and they get Saturday or Sunday off for the whole year, but most years, they'd be taking a day off in the middle of the regular work week, and that would cause a lot of employment problems (as well as simply being inconvenient since it wouldn't mesh with everyone else's weekends and time off).

Answer choice (C): Under the scheme, the calendar looks exactly the same every year (with the exception of the extra day at the end of leap years), so school districts could plan out their 180 days the same each year. No conflict here.

Answer choice (D): Under the scheme, the calendar looks exactly the same every year, so any given holiday would fall on the same day of the week each year. For any given holiday, either it generates a three-day weekend or it does not, every single year. (Assume that holidays are assigned according to dates on the calendar, rather than lunar cycles or something like that.)

Answer choice (E): Under the scheme, the calendar looks exactly the same every year, so people should not encounter any conflicts in planning ahead.

Hi Dave,

I struggled with understanding that the unummberd and undated days were actually floating days that were just not on the calender. By "no week", I thought the stimulus meant that the days were entirely omitted from the calender and didn't exist at all. So I thought that it would just be: Saturday Dec 30th (Dec 31st OMITTED) to Sunday January 1st. I struggled to understand how B is the correct answer because I didn't see how the interval would change.

How was I supposed to know that these floating days still existed at the end of the calender year based on "belonged to no week" versus complete omission? With this type of proposal, are these floating days still days that are spent even though they are not on the calender? Hence, why the 7th day of observance changes every week? Please clarify, thank you!

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Queen,

Thanks for the question! I answered part of your question about 6 posts above us here, so I'd start there—it addresses the uncountable/unnamed aspect you ask about

Thanks!