Businessperson: Because the parking

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope: reasons for maintenance2% picked this

   What were the reasons for performing maintenance on the parking area directly in front of the building

   It's irrelevant to us why they were doing maintenance. We're only concerned about the hypothetical world in which there wasn't maintenance closing down the front lot.

   2%
2. B

   Unclear Impact31% picked this

   Were any other of the meeting attendees also late to the meeting because they had

   Whether there were or weren't other people who were late because of finding parking won't really tell us anything about the hypothetical world where maintenance wasn't happening. We don't know whether they got to the lot around the same time the author did. Essentially, this answer is tempting us to object to this author by saying, "you're lying. the parking situation didn't really make you late. None of the other attendees were late because of the meeting." But that wouldn't be an LSAT type of objection: you're lying about your premise. We want to accept that it took 15 mins to find parking once he found out that the front lot was unavailable, but still argue that on a different day, he still would have been late.

   31%
3. C

   Correct50% picked this

   What are the parking patterns in the building’s vicinity on days when the parking area in front of

   Why this is right

   This is such an obnoxiously vague answer. Pretty legendary in terms of being gross. But, it is the only answer talking about the alternate universe where they weren't doing maintenance, and the front lot was open. If the parking patterns on regular days are such that the author would have been likely to be able to get a spot in the front lot at that time of day, that strengthens the argument. If the parking patterns on regular days are such that the author still wouldn't have found a spot in the front lot and still would have needed to circle around the parking lot a bunch to find a spot, then that weakens the argument.

   Skill tested: Evaluate · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   50%
4. D

   Weak Impact16% picked this

   Does the businessperson have a tendency to be late

   If we say "yes" to this question, we're saying "this person tends to be late to meetings". Does that weaken the argument? Yeah, it does, somewhat. It's not the strongest objection, because maybe this meeting was important and the author was atypically cautious about getting to work earlier. In fact, we know that the author was at least 10 mins early in getting to the parking lot (because the 15 min parking hunt only caused him to be a few minutes late). So, whether or not he's usually late to meetings, we already know he wasn't late to this one, in terms of when he got to the parking lot. We don't want to compare this meeting to other times there have been meetings. We're trying to compare how the author's parking went for this meeting to how the author's parking would have gone for this meeting if the maintenance hadn't closed down the front lot.

   16%
5. E

   Out of Scope: important1% picked this

   Was it particularly important that the businessperson not be late to

   Whether or not the meeting was important won't help us in any way to judge how the author's parking situation on this day would have compared with that on a regular day.

   1%