Q13 - This summer, Jennifer, who

[b91302310]

Could anyone explain why (B) is wrong?? For the correct answer choice (A), what if Jen uses all 3 weeks vacation entited this year with the unused 1 week deferred from the last year?

Is it a math question ??

Thanks for the explanation~

[cyruswhittaker]

It's a must be true question where you have to pay close attention to the rules stated in the argument.

Jennifer plans to take four weeks off. She has three weeks off from the current year, so she has to add extra time from her previous year, and the rule is that "can apply up to half of any vacation time that remains unused at the end of one year to the next year's."

She's only given three weeks per year, so if A is correct, she would have used up two of the three weeks last year, leaving only a week unused, which she can apply only half of.

So she could only have 3.5 week paid vacation rather than 4.

And hence choice A must be true.

B is incorrect because we can't infer this. It says that she's worked just over three years at KVZ. Thus, in a year, she would have worked more than 4 years. And hence it's outside the time range that is specified in the problem: "between one and four years."

[b91302310]

But what if she did not use 3 weeks of the vacation time last year and uses only 2.5 weeks of the vacation time entitled this year? (1.5+2.5=4)

Would it be better for the answer choice (A) to add "at least" in front of the two weeks?

[farhadshekib]

But what if she did not use 3 weeks of the vacation time last year and uses only 2.5 weeks of the vacation time entitled this year? (1.5+2.5=4)

Would it be better for the answer choice (A) to add "at least" in front of the two weeks?

Oh, this question gave me a headache.

Okay, may be I can provide another perspective here.

We know the following:

(1) Jen, who has worked at KVZ for just over three years, plans to spend four weeks of paid vacation time with her family this year.

(2) Anyone who has worked at KVZ btw 1 to 4 yrs gets three weeks of vacation time per year.

(3) But they can apply up to half of any vacation time that remains unused at the end of one year to the next.

What must be true?

(A) Jen did not use two weeks of the paid vacation time to which she was entitled last year.

Why?

If Jen used the two weeks of paid vacation time to which she was entitled to last year, she would only have one week of unused vacation time available.

However, the most she is allowed to use of that one extra week towards this years vacation is 50 %, that is, half the week.

If this is true, Jen would only be entitled to 3.5 weeks of paid vacation time, and not the full 4 weeks, as the stimulus suggests.

Makes sense? It's key to realize the "remain unused" portion of the stim.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Nice work farhadshekib! I think it's also really important to recognize that Jennifer is only "entitled" to 4 weeks of vacation. So we have to plan on Jennifer having exactly 4 weeks of vacation time to which she is entitled this year.

But what if she did not use 3 weeks of the vacation time last year and uses only 2.5 weeks of the vacation time entitled this year? (1.5+2.5=4)

So to the point made earlier that would have Jennifer only using some of the vacation time to which Jennifer is entitled, this would not conform to the statements in the stimulus.

(1) Jen, who has worked at KVZ for just over three years, plans to spend four weeks of paid vacation time with her family this year.

(2) Anyone who has worked at KVZ btw 1 to 4 yrs gets three weeks of vacation time per year.

(3) But they can apply up to half of any vacation time that remains unused at the end of one year to the next.

According to the stimulus, answer choices (A), (B), and (D) have historically been tempting for students.

Answer choice (A) must be true in order for Jennifer to be entitled to 4 weeks of vacation time this year.

(B) need not be true for the reason pointed out by cyruswhittaker above that Jennifer will no longer be within the scope of the point (2) made above.
(C) has no support in the stimulus.
(D) need not be true since Jennifer might have been entitled to more than 3 weeks of vacation last year, if she had rolled vacation over from the previous year.
(E) has no support in the stimulus.

Nice discussion everyone!

[KakaJaja]

Sorry I want to ask that "between one and four years" does not include four year? Since Jen has finished three year, the next year would be the fourth year.

Thank you!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Not exactly... Jennifer has been working at KVZ Manufacturing for just over 3 years. That means that she is currently in her 4th year, and that next year, she'll actually be in her 5th year.

To your question about "between one and four years." That would include year four, its just that next year Jennifer won't be an employee working at KVZ Manufacturing between one and four years.

[shaynfernandez]

I still don't understand how we know that Jen only used two weeks of paid vacation last year.
What if she didn't go on vacation at all last year?
She could use 1.5 weeks of vacation time left over and add that onto this vacation time...

[ban2110]

I'm still rather confused over choice (D). If last year Jennifer took only 1 week of the paid vacation time then wouldn't that mean she has at least 2 weeks unused vacation time she can roll over?

I'm just having trouble differentiating between (A) and (D). They sound absolutely identical to me and I can't tell why.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[sumukh09]

I'm still rather confused over choice (D). If last year Jennifer took only 1 week of the paid vacation time then wouldn't that mean she has at least 2 weeks unused vacation time she can roll over?

I'm just having trouble differentiating between (A) and (D). They sound absolutely identical to me and I can't tell why.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Alright let's try and make this as simple as possible.

This is a must be true question so we need to figure out what we know

We know:

(1) Jen has worked for three years at KVZ
(2) if you've worked at KVZ from one to four years you're entitled to three weeks paid vacation each year
(3) if you haven't used all your paid vacation weeks then you can carry over half of what you haven't used; for example, if you used 2 weeks in an year then you can carry over 1 for the next year (2 left over so half of 2 = 1 week)
(4) Jen is using four weeks this year which must mean she used two last year because that additional week she has this year is from half of the two she didn't use last year

A is therefore correct which says exactly that

D is wrong because we don't how many weeks she had last year. Maybe she had 5 weeks because she carried over 2 from the preceding year. So if she only used 1 last year, then she would have 2 this year for a total of 5 again, but we know she only has 4.

More specifically, we know she had to have 4 weeks last year otherwise there's no way to have that additional year this year; because if she didn't use two weeks last year and has one extra week this year, then she must have had 4 last year [(4 -2) / 2].

But the problem with D is that we don't know how many weeks she had last year; it says she only took 1 week, but is that 1 out of 3 weeks or 1 out of 4? We don't know.

[Nina]

i think A is also a little bit problematic. because we can't know exactly how many weeks she used last year. maximally, she can apply "up to" half of what remained from last year, but it is also possible that she has 3 weeks remained last year (because she didn't take any vacation at all), but she is not necessarily been allowed to take the maximum (1.5) weeks carried over from last year, instead only 1 week.

any help will be appreciated!

[Mab6q]

Makes perfect sense.

[ohthatpatrick]

Let's see if we clear up the last two questions.

The second to last poster was saying, "What if Jennifer had 3 unused weeks the previous year? That would mean she gets 1.5 hrs this year on top of her automatic 3 hrs. That's enough to have the four week vacation, but it seems to go against (A), which is implying that she had exactly 2 unused weeks the previous year."

The problem with that thinking is that we're told that Jennifer is going to spend "the entire four weeks of paid vacation she's entitled to this year". So that disallows us to think she has 4.5 hrs this year, which means we can't think that she had 3 unused hours last year.

---

The last poster was describing this scenario (I think):

year 1 - she works, no vacation time awarded yet

year 2 - awarded 3 weeks, uses 1 (2 weeks unused)

year 3 - awarded 3 weeks plus 1 (50% of the 2 unused weeks from last year) ... she has 4 total weeks, she uses 2 weeks, leaving 2 unused

year 4 - awarded 3 weeks plus 1 (50% of the 2 unused weeks from previous year) ... she has 4 total weeks

These numbers all seem legit to me.

So here's the confusion: you're saying that in year 3 ...i.e. "last year" in choice (A) .... she used 2 weeks of vacation.

You're thinking that contradicts choice (A), which says she did NOT use two weeks of vacation time.

However, what (A) is really referring to is UNUSED time, not USED time.

(A) is saying that last year, there were 2 unused hours (this exactly matches your scenario).

I see where you got the confusing ambiguity.

Is (A) saying
"it is untrue that Jennifer used two weeks of vacation last year"
or is it saying
"it must be true that Jennifer has 2 unused weeks of vacation time last year"
??

I'll grant you, it might have been a sloppy oversight for them to have stumbled upon this ambiguous meaning.

But, the language of "use" was only ever applied in the stimulus to the concept of "unused". When the stimulus talked about employees actually TAKING vacation time, it used words like "spend the entire four weeks" / "entitled" / "apply". It only ever used the word "use" in the context of "unused".

So based on consistency, we would favor the meaning of (A) that equates "did not use two weeks" with "had two unused weeks".

====

Despite the cool mathematical/linguistic circles we're talking ourselves in, let's remind ourselves of how simple this question was TRYING to be.

Vacay time this year = 3hrs + 1/2 (last year's unused time)

Jen's vacay time this year = 4 hrs.

Substitute that into the above equation.

4hrs. = 3 hrs. + 1/2 (last year's unused time)

4hrs. - 3hrs = 1/2 (last year's unused time)

1 hr = 1/2(last year's unused time)

2 hrs = last year's unused time

Choice (A). And this concludes the only time I will (hopefully) ever do algebra on the LSAT forum.

[Mab6q]

Let's see if we clear up the last two questions.

The second to last poster was saying, "What if Jennifer had 3 unused weeks the previous year? That would mean she gets 1.5 hrs this year on top of her automatic 3 hrs. That's enough to have the four week vacation, but it seems to go against (A), which is implying that she had exactly 2 unused weeks the previous year."

The problem with that thinking is that we're told that Jennifer is going to spend "the entire four weeks of paid vacation she's entitled to this year". So that disallows us to think she has 4.5 hrs this year, which means we can't think that she had 3 unused hours last year.

---

The last poster was describing this scenario (I think):

year 1 - she works, no vacation time awarded yet

year 2 - awarded 3 weeks, uses 1 (2 weeks unused)

year 3 - awarded 3 weeks plus 1 (50% of the 2 unused weeks from last year) ... she has 4 total weeks, she uses 2 weeks, leaving 2 unused

year 4 - awarded 3 weeks plus 1 (50% of the 2 unused weeks from previous year) ... she has 4 total weeks

These numbers all seem legit to me.

So here's the confusion: you're saying that in year 3 ...i.e. "last year" in choice (A) .... she used 2 weeks of vacation.

You're thinking that contradicts choice (A), which says she did NOT use two weeks of vacation time.

However, what (A) is really referring to is UNUSED time, not USED time.

(A) is saying that last year, there were 2 unused hours (this exactly matches your scenario).

I see where you got the confusing ambiguity.

Is (A) saying
"it is untrue that Jennifer used two weeks of vacation last year"
or is it saying
"it must be true that Jennifer has 2 unused weeks of vacation time last year"
??

I'll grant you, it might have been a sloppy oversight for them to have stumbled upon this ambiguous meaning.

But, the language of "use" was only ever applied in the stimulus to the concept of "unused". When the stimulus talked about employees actually TAKING vacation time, it used words like "spend the entire four weeks" / "entitled" / "apply". It only ever used the word "use" in the context of "unused".

So based on consistency, we would favor the meaning of (A) that equates "did not use two weeks" with "had two unused weeks".

====

Despite the cool mathematical/linguistic circles we're talking ourselves in, let's remind ourselves of how simple this question was TRYING to be.

Vacay time this year = 3hrs + 1/2 (last year's unused time)

Jen's vacay time this year = 4 hrs.

Substitute that into the above equation.

4hrs. = 3 hrs. + 1/2 (last year's unused time)

4hrs. - 3hrs = 1/2 (last year's unused time)

1 hr = 1/2(last year's unused time)

2 hrs = last year's unused time

Choice (A). And this concludes the only time I will (hopefully) ever do algebra on the LSAT forum.

Thank you so much for clearing that up, it's been bothering me for a while. I see the distinction you made. Idk, I think it's vague enough to interpreted the other way, but that's the LSAT for you.

[johnfkerkhoff]

I still don't think this issue has been adequately addressed.

If Jennifer has 4 weeks this year, we know she didn't use AT LEAST two weeks she was entitled to the year before.

If that were the answer to A) I'd understand.

However A) says Jennifer "did not use two weeks" of vacation last year. How do we know this MUST BE TRUE? We don't. For all we know, Jennifer was busy at work and didn't go on vacation at all last year. In that case she wouldn't have used at least three weeks vacation she was entitled to.

Under the premises, it can be true that Jennifer did not use three weeks of the paid vacation she was entitled to. That is in direct contradiction of A, especially considering this is a must be true question.

I see no way in which it MUST BE TRUE that A is correct.

[tommywallach]

Hey John,

I think Patrick addressed that here: So based on consistency, we would favor the meaning of (A) that equates "did not use two weeks" with "had two unused weeks".

Either way, pay attention to what he said about simplicity. (A) is trying to be relatively straightforward, really.

-t

[kumsayuya]

This one was confusing, but I'll attempt to give it an explanation.

Okay so, I was also between (A) and (B) and ended up getting this wrong, but after reading all the comments, I can see exactly why (A) is correct.

So, what I think a lot of people are getting confused with above is that part of the stimulus that is ..."up to half of any vacation time" (referring to what she can apply for).

So, Jennifer has 3 weeks that she is given for that year.

Jennifer also must not have used all of her vacation time because she is having 4 weeks off, which is more than the 3 that anyone that has worked for the company between 1-4 years.

So, what must this mean? If she can apply for UP TO HALF, she at the very least must NOT have used 2 weeks of her vacation time (half of 2 being 1). Or in other words, she atleast did not use 2 weeks of her vacation time, because if she used any more than 2 weeks, try taking half of less than 2.. does that equate to the 4 weeks she is using to see her family? Nope.

The issue here is I think the wording of (A). It's being interpreted by most above (but also myself initially) that this is the exact amount of time that she did not use last year. But in reality, this is not what it's saying. If it stated "Jennifer did not use atleast two weeks..." I dont think most people would be having the issue they are having. It is not saying she took exactly 2 weeks, but rather, at the very least she did not use two weeks, because if she used any more than two weeks, and she can only apply to up to half, she wouldnt be able to have the 4 week vacation that she wants!

Hopefully this helps. I think "atleast" in (A) would clear up a lot of confusion surrounding this question.

[ghorizon09]

A). is the only answer that must be true, it's impossible for it to be false, because if it were false, then she would not have the extra week of paid vacation to carry over from last year. D could be true but it need not be. Jennifer could have used 2 weeks paid vacation last year if she carried over a week from the previous year.