Q11 - To be considered for this year's Gillespie Grant

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: If her application isn't mailed 10 days before the due date, she won't be considered for the grant.
Evidence: We're assuming she's sending the app by regular mail from Greendale, and it can take up to ten days for regular mail to reach GC. If you don't get your app to GC by Oct 1, you won't be considered for the grant.

Answer Anticipation:
To argue that she won't be considered for the grant, the author has to establish that Mary's app won't be received in GC by October 1st. He thinks that "if her app isn't mailed ten days before the due date", "it won't be received by GC by October 1st". How could we object and say "even if it's mailed 9 days before the due date, she might still be considered?" We're told that it CAN take up to 10 days for regular mail to reach GC, but that doesn't mean it WILL take 10 days. It's possible that she mails her app only 9 days before the Oct 1 cutoff and regular mail gets it to GC in 9 days or less. He seems to be assuming that "if there's a chance it'll take 10 days, it'll take 10 days."

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) The conclusion is conditional, so the author isn't assuming anything about the left side idea. When I say "If Bernie runs again in 2020, he'll lose", I'm not assuming that Bernie will run again in 2020. I'm only claiming that WERE he to run again, something would happen.

(B) We're only concerned with regular mail, not express mail.

(C) YES! This speaks to the fact that the author mistook "it could take up to 10 days" as "it WILL take ten days". 10 days was the maximum, but if the minimum time is 5 days, then Mary would still have a chance of getting her app to GC on time even if her application were mailed nine / eight / seven / six / five days before the due date.

(D) Fake opposite (i.e. illegal negation). The author is saying "If it's NOT received by Oct 1, it will NOT have satisfied ALL requirements". This answer is accusing the author of thinking, "If it IS received by Oct 1, it WILL have satisfied all requirements."

(E) First of all, "overlooks the possibility" should be introducing an objection. Meanwhile, this idea actually goes with the author. Secondly, we don't care about express mail.

Takeaway/Pattern: This isn't the first time that LSAT has asked us to analzye the fuzzy wording of a shipping policy. If you'd like to see another version of this same flaw, check out this one: https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... t5407.html

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