#13 - This summer, Jennifer, who has worked at KVZ

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (A)

The stimulus consists entirely of premises, and reports that Jennifer is going to take her entire four weeks of vacation, and gives us some rules about vacation time at her company.

• "Work 1 to 4 years 3 weeks for current year and half of remaining time from previous year"

Since Jennifer has 4 weeks of vacation coming, we can assume that she has this year's 3 weeks, plus 1 week gotten from the previous year.

You are asked what must be true, and you have to be very careful, because there are a variety of methods by which Jennifer could have accumulated the extra week. The only thing that you can be absolutely certain of is that 2 of the weeks that Jennifer had coming last year went unused, and were therefore reduced to 1 extra week that she is due this year.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. The only thing about which you can be certain is that Jennifer did not use 2 of the weeks she could have last year, which would explain why she has exactly one extra week this year.

Answer choice (B): This choice cannot be supported by the stimulus, because Jennifer just completed her third year, is in her fourth year, and next year would be her fifth year. The vacation time due to people who have spent five or more years at the corporation is not described in the stimulus.

Answer choice (C): Even though you might expect the employees to use their vacation rather than lose half of it, you cannot be sure that the employees choose to, so this choice is wrong.

Answer choice (D): You may have gotten hung up on this choice, because you may have thought that if Jennifer does not use 2 of her weeks in a year, she could only take 1 week in that year. However, the fact is that last year was Jennifer's 3rd year, and she might have had vacation time remaining from her 2nd year, so she could have taken more than 1 week of vacation and still had 2 weeks left over.

Answer choice (E): This choice ignores the fact that Jennifer can get four weeks of vacation by playing entirely within the rules, and that the stimulus explicitly states that Jennifer is "entitled" to the four weeks, which somewhat rules out the notion that the company is making an exception for her.

[moshei24]

I chose the correct answer for this question as A, but to me it still looks flawed.

She could have no used more than two weeks paid vacation time last year and only requested for one week of extra for the following year. In the Powerscore explanation, it says that she gets to have the three weeks for this year plus half of last year's. But that's not true, she get three from this year and UP TO half of last year's. So shouldn't the answer be that Jennifer didn't use at least two weeks of the paid vacation? Not that she didn't use two week, but that she didn't use AT LEAST two weeks.

Am I mistaken?

Thanks!

[Steve Stein]

Hi Moshe,

Your question is in essence a semantic one: the answer choice basically provides that two weeks of last year's vacation time remained unused. This could also be characterized as "she had at least two weeks' vacation left over from last year," but the phrase at least is not absolutely required in this context.

It's like if you and I walked past a soda machine, you asked me if I had 50 cents, and I said "yes," while pulling out a dollar. Your question would not have been unreasonably vague, and my response would not have been inaccurate.

Would it have been clearer for the LSAT to use the term "at least" in that answer choice? Yes. But not absolutely necessary.

Let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

~Steve

[moshei24]

I think I see it now - especially now that my mind is more relaxed than it was when I last looked at it.

At least two weeks includes two weeks, so it must be true that she did not use two weeks, because if she hadn't used three weeks, it still includes that she hadn't used two weeks. Am I following correctly?

Thanks!

[Steve Stein]

You got it!

[Echx73]

TeamPowerScore,

I am going through the PowerScore LSAT LR Question Type Training Volume 1 book. I am only able to see an explanation for the answer selection, just which answer is correct. I know going through every answer would take way too much of your time, so I will just ask a few.

MBT Page 35 Q#48 The correct answer in the book says A. Going through the answers, I know C & E are incorrect. A, B, and D all look decent. Comparing A & D together, I notice they say pretty much the same thing. We know she had a total of 3 weeks off last year. A, says she did not use two weeks of them, and D, states she only used one week meaning she has two weeks off still in her bank. So, I used B. Years 1-4 you get 3 weeks of vacation which is stated in the stimulus and in answer B. Help!

Sincerely, I thank you so much for your help!

Eric

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hey Eric,

This is a Must Be True question, so you need to read very, very carefully. These questions test close reading (along with some basic arithmetic in this case).

Alright, so what do we know? Normally, Jennifer would be entitled to 3 weeks of paid vacation this year, but apparently she's taking 4. How so? Well, since she can roll over half of any vacation time that remains unused at the end of last year towards the following year, she must be taking advantage of that provision. If the fourth week must be 1/2 of the unused time last year, she must have had at least two weeks of unused vacation time last year. Answer choice (A) agrees with this prephrase.

(B) is incorrect, because it is not necessarily true that if Jennifer continues to work for KVZ Manufacturing, she will only be entitled to three weeks paid vacation next year. It's entirely possible that she will be entitled to more, because next year it will be her 4th year anniversary with KVZ (she's been with the company for a little over 3 years so far). It's entirely possible that she'll be entitled to more vacation next year. Or, what if she changes her mind and doesn't take all the time she is entitled to this year?

Re: answer choice (D), this one is tricky. Just because Jennifer has 2 weeks of unused time from last year doesn't mean that she took the third week as vacation. It's entirely possible that she didn't take any time off last year, which would make her entitled to 1.5 weeks of extra time this year (of which she is only taking 1 week). Remember - Jennifer can apply up to half of any vacation time that remains unused at the end of one year to the next year's vacation.

Does that make sense?

Thanks!

[linda.an]

The stimulus reads "anyone who has worked at KVZ Manufacturing for between one and four years is automatically entitled to exactly three weeks paid vacation each year but can apply up to half of any vacation time that remains unused at the end of one year to the next year's vacation."

So I took it to mean that Jennifer did not use at least two weeks of the paid vacation time to which she was entitled last year.

It is a must be true question and answer A) is not necessarily true?

Please help me out. Thank you!

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Linda, Great question. In a "Must be True" situation, you are looking for something that is absolutely, incontrovertibly true, beyond the shadow of a doubt. You have correctly inferred that she must not have used at least two of her weeks of vacation from the previous year (She might not have used all three, but this is not provable). The statement as it stands in (A) indicated that she did not use two weeks of vacation to which she was entitled. This is absolutely, positively true, as Nikki and the Admin have explained above. The correct answer choice "Jennifer did not use two weeks of the paid vacation time to which she was entitled last year" is consistent with your statement "she did not use at least two weeks of her vacation." There can be more than one possible inference that must be true based on any given stimulus.

In fact, in most Must Be True situations, there will be several possible correct inferences, i.e. several possible statements that must be true. Often the stimulus will point you in a certain direction. You will be able to "see where the stimulus is going" with any given set of statements (as you have done well here). However, any statement that is provable, even if it does not seem particularly "on topic" can be the right answer to a must be true question. For instance, if you know from a stimulus that Tom, Dick, and Jane must be expert short order cooks from the stimulus, but the answer choice only says "Tom is an expert short order cook," that can still be the right answer for an MBT question. I hope this clarifies this question for you. Please respond if you have further questions or need further explication!

[pinsyuanwu]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (A)


Since Jennifer has 4 weeks of vacation coming, we can assume that she has this year's 3 weeks, plus 1 week gotten from the previous year.

You are asked what must be true, and you have to be very careful, because there are a variety of methods by which Jennifer could have accumulated the extra week. The only thing that you can be absolutely certain of is that 2 of the weeks that Jennifer had coming last year went unused, and were therefore reduced to 1 extra week that she is due this year.

my question about ANS (A) is according to passage "Anyone can apply UP TO half of any vacation time that remain unused at the end of one year to the next year's vacation."
UP TO means at most right?
For employee working there from 1-4 year they have 3 weeks paid leave.
Half of 3 is 1.5 which is less than 2. How could (A) is correct?
I know all the rest ans are wrong but I have problem that A is correct.

Powerscore staff plz help!