Logical Reasoning

PT153 · S2 · Q21 City official: Landowners must clear the snow

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City official: Landowners must clear the snow from the sidewalks along the edge of their property by 24 hours after the end of a snowstorm.

Statements

There are a bunch of rules here, far too many to realistically diagram within our 1.5 - 2 mins. Seeing all these different conditional triggers (must, any, whenever, will, all, always, unless), we'd be fooling ourselves to think we can diagram all this.

Instead, take a comfortable second or third read through it. Try to internalize some of the details, and plan to check on the details as answer choices force us to.

SNOW RULES - in first 24 hrs after a snowstorm ends, you're supposed to shovel your sidewalk if you don't ... - once it's past 24 hrs, the city can clear it for you and will always bill you for it. - once it's past 48 hrs, you get a citation, and, assuming you don't have extenuating circumstances, you also get a fine.

Goal

Find an answer we can derive from all these rules.

21.

If all of the official's statements are true, which one of the following must be true?

  1. Correct

    If the city clears a

    Why this is right

    This seems right. What do we know about snow on your sidewalk 50 hours after a storm? The second sentence says that the city has the right to clear your sidewalk and will always bill you for it, if they do. The third sentence tells us that you'll definitely get a citation, and you might get a fine do (if you don't have extenuating circumstances). So it's fair to say that if the city clears your sidewalk at hour 50, you're gonna get billed and you were already definitely going to get a citation.

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

    54% picked this

  2. All landowners who fail to

    Too Strong

    There isn't any rule that says you automatically get billed after hour 24. The city has a right to clear your sidewalk at that point, and whenever they do (i.e. if they do), you'll get billed. But it's possible that you failed to clear the sidewalk in the first 24 hours, the city doesn't take advantage of its right to clear it, and then you shovel the snow at hour 30. The city wouldn't have ever cleared your sidewalk so they wouldn't be billing you for anything.

    9% picked this

  3. All sidewalks in the city

    Too Strong

    We don't know that all sidewalks will be cleared, since we're only told that the city has the right to clear your sidewalk after the 24 hour mark. That doesn't mean they'll exercise that right (even if they wanted to, they might not have the manpower to clear all sidewalks in the city). No sidewalk-clearing kicks into gear at the 48 hour mark, just citations and possible fines.

    3% picked this

  4. Nearly all landowners who do

    Too Strong

    We can't speak to the frequency of "extenuating circumstances", so we don't know whether all / nearly all / most / many / some get fined. If you have extenuating circumstances, you don't necessarily get fined at the 48 hour mark. It might be that the vast majority of people clear their sidewalks within 48 hours, and the only people who let it go beyond that are mainly people who had extenuating circumstances (they were in a different city when snowstorm hit).

    22% picked this

  5. Landowners who can demonstrate extenuating

    Illegal Opposite Contradicted

    "Unless" = if it's not the case that if they can't demonstrate ? always get extenuating circumstances fined This answer is saying if they can ? won't get demonstrate billed We weren't told any exception like that. In fact, this is contradicted by the fact that we were told that "whenever the city clears snow for you, it will bill you."

    11% picked this

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