#16 - Roxanne promised Luke that she would finish their

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True-SN, FIB. The correct answer choice is (D)

This author discusses a promise from Roxanne to Luke—that while Luke was on vacation, Roxanne would complete their report. The deadline got extended, however, and the author compares the situation to one in which a person promises another to meet for lunch, but falls ill beforehand. The friend would not expect one to make the lunch after falling ill, and it would not be wrong for the person to miss the lunch under the circumstances.

Roxanne promised Luke that she would finish their report while he was away, but then the deadline got extended. Similarly...it would not be wrong for Roxanne to not finish the report, presuming that Luke would not expect her to complete the report given the change in deadline.

The stimulus ends with a blank to fill in, so the right answer choice should complete the stimulus in the manner prephrased above.

Answer choice (A): The author would not go so far as to assert that it would be wrong for Roxanne to finish the report; rather, it would not be wrong if she didn’t finish, considering the deadline change.

Answer choice (B): The author’s point is basically that the changed deadline provides a reasonable excuse for Roxanne not to finish—not that it is alright for her to finish the report regardless of the new deadline. This possibly subtle but important distinction is enough to rule this choice out of contention.

Answer choice (C): The author’s conclusion would be that it would not be wrong for her to fail to finish the report, making this an Opposite Answer (which claims that such failure would be wrong), so this choice should be ruled out of contention.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. As prephrased above, this choice provides that if Luke hadn’t expected her to complete the report given the change in deadline, it would not have been wrong for her to not complete it.

Answer choice (E): The author would not conclude that it would be wrong for Roxanne to finish the report, but rather that it would be alright if she failed to complete the report given the deadline change.

[SherryZ]

Hi there! Thank you for your help!!

June 2013 LSAT Sec 1 LR, Q16:

This question, to me, it is so tricky! I picked C but the correct choice is D.

Since there are 2 sentences contain "if", my original thought is:

Promised but ill NOT wrong;
If ill Friend NOT expect

And then I stuck.....

Also, I noticed that in C, it says "After the deadline has been postponed...". In D, it says "under the circumstances". Does the difference affect the accuracy??

Thank you so much!!

---Sherry

[David Boyle]

Hi there! Thank you for your help!!

June 2013 LSAT Sec 1 LR, Q16:

This question, to me, it is so tricky! I picked C but the correct choice is D.

Since there are 2 sentences contain "if", my original thought is:

Promised but ill NOT wrong;
If ill Friend NOT expect

And then I stuck.....

Also, I noticed that in C, it says "After the deadline has been postponed...". In D, it says "under the circumstances". Does the difference affect the accuracy??

Thank you so much!!

---Sherry

Hello Sherry,

I thought the test was over on Saturday, but everyone is asking questions today! :P
--Among other things, the tone of answer choice D is "merciful", i.e., giving an excuse for Roxanne not finishing. The tone of C is more "merciless", i.e., "Roxanne better have finished!" So the tone of D fits the "your friend would not expect you to be there if you felt ill" portion, which gives an excuse for nonperformance.
Also, re parallelism: choice D has two "nots", just like the relevant portion of the stimulus; C has only one "not". (So your diagramming above was not too bad, though you could have used it to think something like, "Ill arrow not wrong and not expect", and looked for a similar-sounding answer with two nots, that is, answer D.)
And of course, "the deadline for that report was postponed" matches "just before lunch you felt ill"; an unexpected event that changes people's responsibilities.

As for "Also, I noticed that in C, it says "After the deadline has been postponed...". In D, it says "under the circumstances". Does the difference affect the accuracy??": I'm not sure it does too much. Instead, a main problem between C and D may be a mistaken negation sort of thing; that is, D says, "not expect therefore not wrong", but C says, "expect therefore wrong", which sounds like a mistaken negation of what D says.

Hope that helps,
David

[SherryZ]

Hi David,

Thank you for your reply! However, I still have a question. Based on your analysis, I find that B also seems correct. B and D is very similar, the only difference is that B says "If Luke did not expect the deadline to be postponed", and D says "If Luke would not expect Roxanne to finish the report under the circumstances".

Also, according to your analysis, "You felt ill just before lunch" parallels to "The deadline for that report was postponed". Should B be more accurate than D??

Thank you again and I am looking forward to your response

---Sherry

[David Boyle]

Hi David,

Thank you for your reply! However, I still have a question. Based on your analysis, I find that B also seems correct. B and D is very similar, the only difference is that B says "If Luke did not expect the deadline to be postponed", and D says "If Luke would not expect Roxanne to finish the report under the circumstances".

Also, according to your analysis, "You felt ill just before lunch" parallels to "The deadline for that report was postponed". Should B be more accurate than D??

Thank you again and I am looking forward to your response

---Sherry

Hello,

B, "it would not be wrong for Roxanne to finish the report if Luke did not expect the deadline to be postponed", also seems like a mistaken something or other. If it read "it would not be wrong for Roxanne NOT to finish the report if Luke DID expect the deadline to be postponed", that might fit reality better, because that's what the stimulus discusses, i.e., the postponing, and Roxanne not finishing. (In fact, D says, "then it would not be wrong for Roxanne to fail to finish it", which is far different from B saying "it would not be wrong for Roxanne to finish the report".)
Am not sure what you mean by "Should B be more accurate than D??", but B in any case is not more accurate than D.

:Hope that helps,:
David

[SherryZ]

Dear David,

Thank you for your reply! Your explanation solved my problem!

Sincerely,
Sherry

[VamosRafa19]

Hi,

I narrowed this down to answers C and D, then I kind of reasoned my way into answer choice D since it felt more like the stimulus. However I could not conclusively rule out answer choice C, and even after trying to diagram the conditional logic I'm getting stumped and cannot rule it out. What makes D better than C?

From the stimulus I tried to narrow my conditional logic to

promised but something happened not wrong to miss
promised but something happened friend would not expect you

I diagrammed C as expect wrong to miss. With this logic I can't tie to the stimulus at all.

I diagrammed D as not expect not be wrong to miss. Which I also can't really tie to stimulus.

[Stephanie Oswalt]

Hi VamosRafa19!

Thanks for the post! I have moved your question to the thread discussing this topic. Please review the above explanation and discussion, and let us know if you have any additional questions!

Thanks!

[cspertus]

I am having the same issue as VamosRafa... where can I find the thread that diagrams the conditional logic for C and D?

[KelseyWoods]

Hi VamosRafa19 and cspertus!

This question is a little bit tricky because of the way the conditional statement in the stimulus is phrased. It might help to think of it a little bit less conditionally for a moment. The author is drawing an analogy between the situation between Roxanne and Luke and a situation involving friends who have lunch plans. We need to figure out the takeaway from the lunch plans situation so that we can fill in the rest of the argument about Roxanne and Luke. So ask yourself, what's the conclusion and what are the premises of the lunch plan scenario? The conclusion is that it would be not be wrong to cancel lunch plans with your friend if you fall ill. Why is it not wrong to cancel lunch plans in this scenario? What's the premise? That your friend would not expect you to be at lunch if you were ill.

We need an answer choice that matches this reasoning: that if your friend would not expect you to be at lunch if you are sick, then it would not be wrong for you to cancel lunch plans with your friend if you are sick. We could diagram that as:

Friend expect You Wrong

Answer choice (D) matches that reasoning. It states: "if Luke would not expect Roxanne to finish the report under the circumstances, then it would not be wrong for Roxanne to fail to finish it." We could diagram that as:

Luke expect Roxanne Wrong

Answer choice (C) is a Mistaken Negation of this reasoning. It states: "if Luke would expect Roxanne to finish the report even after the deadline has been postponed, then it would be wrong for Roxanne not to finish it."

Luke expect Roxanne Wrong

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey