Logical Reasoning

PT146 · S3 · Q23 Businessperson: Because the parking

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Businessperson: Because the parking area directly in front of the building was closed for maintenance today, I was late to my meeting.

Conclusion

If the maintenance had been done on a different day, I would have gotten to the meeting on time.

Evidence

Because of the maintenance, I wasn't allowed to park in the parking area directly in front of the building. After finding out that I couldn't park there, it took me 15 minutes to find a spot, which made me a few minutes late.

Evaluate

The author's conclusion is about a counterfactual ... if they hadn't been doing maintenance that day

So to argue with him, we have to enter that alternative universe and think, how could we argue that in a world where they weren't doing maintenance in front of the building, he still would have been late?

We know that he got to the lot around 15 minutes before his meeting (because a 15 min delay in finding a spot made him only a few minutes late).

We'd pretty much be trying to think of storylines where arriving to the parking area 15 mins before the meeting isn't long enough.

Maybe he still would have needed to cruise around 15 mins to find a spot? Maybe he would get caught in conversation with people and walk into the building? Maybe he never really has access to the front lot (either he's not important enough at the company to have a premier spot or he gets there late enough that the front lot is usually already full).

Goal

It's hard to know what to predict here. We just know that the author is Assuming a Difference.

He's either assuming that if the maintenance hadn't been going on, he would have been able to find a spot in the front lot, or that it would have taken less than 15 minutes to drive around and find a spot.

23.

The answer to which one of the following questions would be most useful to know in order to evaluate the reasoning in the businessperson's argument?

  1. What were the reasons for

    Out of Scope: reasons for maintenance

    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% picked this

  2. Were any other of the

    Unclear Impact

    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.

    30% picked this

  3. Correct

    What are the parking patterns

    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.

    51% picked this

  4. Does the businessperson have a

    Weak Impact

    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% picked this

  5. Was it particularly important that

    Out of Scope: important

    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% picked this

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