Q22 - Overdue library book

[smiller]

Question Type:
Principle Example

Stimulus Breakdown:
The principle tells us someone must be fined if:
1. they have more than one overdue out on loan from the library at the same time;
2. some of the overdue books are not children's books; and
3. the person has been fined previously for overdue books.

The application tells us that Kessler currently has more than one overdue book out on loan. It concludes that he must be fined.

Answer Anticipation:
To conclude that Kessler must be fined, we need to know that he also meets the second and third criteria.

Correct Answer:
(B)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This doesn't tell us if Kessler meets the second criteria. Be careful: this tells us that some of the books he currently has out on loan are not children's books, but we don't know if any of these are overdue. These ones might not be due yet. He might have a whole other group of books that are overdue, and all of the overdue books might be children's books. In that case, he wouldn't meet the second criteria.

(B) This answer is correct. It tells us that Kessler meets the second criteria—one of his overdue books is not a children's book—and also meets the third criteria by having been fined last year. (daiqiuyang does make a good point, though. The third criteria mentions plural "books," while this answer choice only specifies one. You could have an interesting debate with the test writers about that.)

(C) This doesn't tell us if Kessler meets the third criteria. We know he has returned books late in the past, but we don't know if he's been fined.

(D) This doesn't tell us if Kessler meets the second criteria. We don't know whether or not any of his currently overdue books are children's books.

(E) This tells us that Kessler does not meet the third criteria, so it doesn't justify him being fined.

Takeaway/Pattern: For this type of question, be sure to understand all of the criteria that must be met in order for the principle to apply. Make sure that the answer you choose supplies the missing criteria. Watch out for answers like (A) that seem to do so, but actually don't.

#officialexplanation

[T.J.]

I'm kinda surprised that no one has raised question about this guy here. I think the debate must have been between A and B.

A says "some of the books that Kessler currently has out on loan are not children's books". This doesn't match the term appearing in the principle, which actually is "overdue books". It is possible that Kessler loans out a lot of book and only a portion of them is overdue. And this portion contains only children's books.

In contrast, B fills this hole with "overdue books".

[sumukh09]

Yup.

Fell for A here. But as you stated, we don't know if any of these books that Kessler has out on loan are actually "overdue."

Principle is:

(1) At least one overdue + (2) not a children's book + (3) previously fined for overdue books ----> Fined

A) satisfies (2) and (3) but not all three to trigger the sufficient assumption.

[tara_amber1]

sumukh lays out a great visual but I don't think the reasoning is all quite there...

In (A), "some" means at least one, so it does fit all three criteria for being fined, but I'm thinking it might be that last part that doesn't quite fit. Maybe we have to assume that the third criteria, "previously fined overdue books" includes NOT children's books as well. Then that would make (B) stand out from (A).

(B): (1) "some"/at least one overdue that is (2) not a children's book + previously fined for overdue CHILDREN's book. = not fined.

(A) (1) at least one overdue that is a (2) novel for adults + previously fined for ADULT book = fined.

(C): none overdue that is a children's book (all are adult books) + various books late = not fined. Because there's ambiguity of the "various books" could be children's, adults, who knows.

(D): commits the same error as (D), so it's out.

(E): "never before been fined," tells us we can eliminate this immediately for not fitting criteria (3).

Let me know if there's a better/easier reasoning! Hope this helps.

[pewals13]

sumukh lays out a great visual but I don't think the reasoning is all quite there...

In (A), "some" means at least one, so it does fit all three criteria for being fined, but I'm thinking it might be that last part that doesn't quite fit. Maybe we have to assume that the third criteria, "previously fined overdue books" includes NOT children's books as well. Then that would make (B) stand out from (A).

(B): (1) "some"/at least one overdue that is (2) not a children's book + previously fined for overdue CHILDREN's book. = not fined.

(A) (1) at least one overdue that is a (2) novel for adults + previously fined for ADULT book = fined.

(C): none overdue that is a children's book (all are adult books) + various books late = not fined. Because there's ambiguity of the "various books" could be children's, adults, who knows.

(D): commits the same error as (D), so it's out.

(E): "never before been fined," tells us we can eliminate this immediately for not fitting criteria (3).

Let me know if there's a better/easier reasoning! Hope this helps.

(A) states that "some of the books Kessler currently has out on loan from the library are not children's books"

You don't know whether those books that are "not children's books" are overdue, remember that according to the principle you need to know:

Overdue books not children's books + previously fined + more than one overdue book

(B) states that "one of the overdue books that Kessler has out in loan.......is a novel for adults"

I think that's the key distinction.

[dmsqlc1121]

At first I misunderstood the stimulus as saying that Kessler had "only" three books out on loan, and that they are overdue.

Now that I reread the stimulus, it actually leaves room for a different inference to be made which is that "of all the books that Kessler has out on loan, three are overdue"

If this is true, which obviously is, then answer choice (A) cannot fully justify the application of the principle because we don't know if the books that are not children's books that Kessler has out on loan is among the three that was stated in the stimulus. What if he had 10 books out on loan and the three books that were overdue were all children's books?




Hope this helps.

[kyuya]

I actually laughed when I finally read the explanation for this question because in blind review I could NOT figure this out.

I think this question is testing reading ability especially (I understand all of the LSAT is..). The reason I say this is because it really tests your specific knowledge of words such as "some".

I eliminated (C) , (D) and (E) relatively easily, and was left with what I was convinced were the same two answer choices worded differently. Of course I was wrong. I'll try to really parse out the differences between the two.

The first hurdle of difficulty we must overcome is looking at the application. What does it tell us?

- three of the books Kessler has out are overdue.

What can we infer from this? Well, he has at least three books and not less. But could he have more? Of course, because the language doesn't preclude this possibility.

This is an important distinction because understanding this can help us differentiate between (A) and (B). As a tangent, I think they put (A) in the position they did because it is a very attractive wrong answer choice, and it may entice you to simply pick it and move on, which in this case would be a mistake.

So as far as the principle goes, we have satisfied the need for "more than one overdue book". What else do we need in order for the principle to be successfully applied?

We need:

- some of the books overdue are not children's books
- person previously fined


(A) Aside from the first principle that is satisfied from the application, (A) also satisfies the need for previously being fined.

So what are we missing? We need some of the overdue books not to be childrens books.

But (A) states... "some of the books Kessler currently has out on loan are not children's books...". We know Kessler has at least three books, but does he have more? He could, and for us to pick (A) would be us making the assumption that statement "some of the books Kessler currently has out on loan from the library..." includes some of the books that are late. To put it more simply, consider this example:

Kessler has 8 books out. 3 of these 8 are overdue. For the application to be applied properly, we need at least one of these three overdue books not to be children's books . But (A) only tells us that some of these books are not children's books. What does some mean? Some means at least 1. So at least 1 of these books Kessler has on loan (from a potential 8 in this case, remember) need to not be a children's book for this statement to be true. Does this mean one of the three overdue books has to not be a children's book? Nope, we could pick any of them to not be a children's book, and all three of the overdue books could be children's books.

That is why this answer is incorrect.

(B) on the other hand, makes this connection clear saying one of the overdue books Kessler has out on loan is a novel for adults (or in other words, not a children's book) and Kessler was fined last year. These are all of the conditions met, and therefore is the correct answer.

Really tricky language here, but makes the difference in getting a tough question like this correct. Apologize if this seems redundant, but some may benefit from really making this explicit.

[karincao9710]

A year late...but I was reviewing this question:

It helps to consider this example that matches up with answer choice A, but does NOT justify the application---Let's say that Kessler has 4 books out on loan: 3 of them are children's books, 1 of them is an adult book and only the 3 children's books are overdue. Then the application would not be justified, so A could not be correct.

[daiqiuyang]

I agree with the above explanations.

But it seems I noticed a loophole in answer choice (B) that no one has point out, correct me if I am wrong.

The Principle in question stem states, in its last part, "and that person has previously been fined for overdue bookS" [Plural]

Whereas answer choice (B) only refers to one book: "and Kessler was fined last year for returning THIS book [singular] late."

Is this a problem?

[obobob]

A quick question-- is the partial principle dictating that the person has to have more than one overdue book fined previously in order to be fined? ("... that person has previously been fined for overdue books.")

[ohthatpatrick]

Good question, but I don't think it's forcing plural overdue books. It seems like a convention of speech to use the plural, but the legal standard would be met by even one offense.

It's like "previously fined for shoplifting". It sounds to me like it's just naming an offense. We could change that "previously fined for shoplifting" to "previously fined for stealing things from a store", and I think it would apply even if a person had only stolen one thing.

[MeenaV936]

On the LSAT, does "some" mean one or more (at least one)?

[ohthatpatrick]

SOME = at least one A is B
NOT ALL = at least one A is ~B

MOST = more than half of A's are B
FEW = less than half of A's are B (or more than half of A's are ~B)

MANY = unspecific quantity .. it suffices to treat it as "at least a handful"