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

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for your question, pinsyuanwu! As you can see from the discussions earlier in this thread, the semantics of answer A are troubling. I didn't like it myself at first, because it was entirely possible that last year Jennifer took two weeks of vacation and still have more than 2 weeks left over, allowing her to carry over an extra week to this year. Here's how:

Year 1 - no vacation available and none taken
Year 2 - she is entitled to 3 weeks and takes none. She carries over half the balance, 1.5 weeks, and so in year 3 she is entitled to all of that.
Year 3 - she takes 2.5 weeks of her 4.5 available (3 weeks for this year plus 1.5 carried over), leaving 2 unused, and she carries over 1 year to this year
Year 4 - this year. She could take all 4 weeks, even though last year she took more than 2 weeks of vacation.

Put another way, in order for Jennifer to take 4 weeks this year, she had to carry over at least 1 week, and since she can only carry over half of her unused vacation time that means she must have had two or more weeks unused at the end of last year.

Answer A would have been clearer and better if it had said that Jennifer left at least 2 weeks of vacation unused at the end of last year, or that she did not use at least 2 weeks. I think if this question was on the test today, that answer would have been better written to capture that idea of "at least", because LSAC has gotten better over the years at tightening up answer choices to avoid getting hit with arguments against them.

Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to interpret answer A as meaning that she had at least two weeks unused at the end of last year - she didn't use two of her available weeks, and maybe left even more unused. Despite the problems with the way they wrote that answer, it is the best of the bunch, and we are after all instructed to select the best answer, even if we don't love it!

An ugly answer, for sure, but still the right one. I hope this makes clearer why that's so!

[cmorris32]

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.

Hi Powerscore!

I am still confused why answer choice D is incorrect. If Jennifer only took one week of paid vacation last year, doesn't that mean that she has at least two weeks of paid vacation unused that could be applied to this year's paid vacation? Even if she has time remaining from her 2nd year, she still has enough time to add one week to this year's vacation. Can you please further explain this?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi cmorris32!

I can try to explain some possible confusion as to why answer choice (D) is ultimately incorrect while (A) is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D) states, "Last year Jennifer took only one week of the paid vacation time to which she was entitled." Since this is categorized as a must be true question, it is essential to ask whether we know this to be true based only on the information in the stimulus, or if it is instead merely something that could be true.

This answer choice should seem suspect because the stimulus doesn't give us any information about Jennifer last year. The stimulus gives us some information to infer conclusions about her prior work/vacation schedule, but answer choice (D) is saying that we know that it must be true from the stimulus that she spent only one week of vacation time to which she was entitled last year. However, we don't know this based on the stimulus. She might have spent only one week of vacation time last year, or perhaps 1.5 weeks, or even 2 weeks. It certainly could be true that she spent only one week of vacation time last year, but there is nothing in the stimulus that requires this to be true, which is why it can't be the right answer for a must be true question.

By contrast, consider answer (A) in light of the information given in the stimulus. First, we are given the fact that Jennifer is taking 4 weeks of vacation. Second, we're told that Jennifer has worked there for 3 years, and that someone who has worked there that long 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." In other words:

worked at KVZ for 1-4 years 3-weeks + half of last year's unused time

Since Jennifer is taking a 4-week vacation as someone who has worked there for 3 years, we therefore know that she must have dipped into her vacation time from the prior year for the extra 1 week. Do we know anything more about that past year? Yes, we know that she must have had 2 weeks of vacation--the policy allows that employees "can apply up to half of any vacation time that remains," so she would have needed at least 2 weeks unused from the prior year for her to be able to apply half of them to make up that 1 extra week. This is what answer (A) conveys: "Jennifer did not use two weeks of the paid vacation time to which she was entitled last year." We know that this has to be true because of the number of weeks of vacation she took this year.

[LSAT2020]

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!

I have the same exact question. Would greatly appreciate any clarification.

[Stephanie Oswalt]

Hi LSAT2020,

Adam Tyson had posted a response to this question. Please see below. Thanks!

Thanks for your question, pinsyuanwu! As you can see from the discussions earlier in this thread, the semantics of answer A are troubling. I didn't like it myself at first, because it was entirely possible that last year Jennifer took two weeks of vacation and still have more than 2 weeks left over, allowing her to carry over an extra week to this year. Here's how:

Year 1 - no vacation available and none taken
Year 2 - she is entitled to 3 weeks and takes none. She carries over half the balance, 1.5 weeks, and so in year 3 she is entitled to all of that.
Year 3 - she takes 2.5 weeks of her 4.5 available (3 weeks for this year plus 1.5 carried over), leaving 2 unused, and she carries over 1 year to this year
Year 4 - this year. She could take all 4 weeks, even though last year she took more than 2 weeks of vacation.

Put another way, in order for Jennifer to take 4 weeks this year, she had to carry over at least 1 week, and since she can only carry over half of her unused vacation time that means she must have had two or more weeks unused at the end of last year.

Answer A would have been clearer and better if it had said that Jennifer left at least 2 weeks of vacation unused at the end of last year, or that she did not use at least 2 weeks. I think if this question was on the test today, that answer would have been better written to capture that idea of "at least", because LSAC has gotten better over the years at tightening up answer choices to avoid getting hit with arguments against them.

Nevertheless, it is not unreasonable to interpret answer A as meaning that she had at least two weeks unused at the end of last year - she didn't use two of her available weeks, and maybe left even more unused. Despite the problems with the way they wrote that answer, it is the best of the bunch, and we are after all instructed to select the best answer, even if we don't love it!

An ugly answer, for sure, but still the right one. I hope this makes clearer why that's so!