LR Question 22 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: The airport’s runways are too close to…
QUESTION TYPE: Most Strongly Supported
FACTS:
- When weather is poor, planes can’t use adjacent runways.
- In good weather, 60 planes an hour can land. In bad weather, 30 planes an hour can land.
- Plane schedules assume good weather. Bad weather creates serious delays.
ANALYSIS: This question tests your ability to identify two different concepts as having the same meaning.
Airlines based their schedules on good weather. That means they assume that up to 60 planes can land at once.
That’s the most strongly supported statement!
It almost seems too obvious, like it didn’t have to be said. But there’s nothing wrong with obvious answers!
___________
- Half as many planes land at the airport in general, during poor weather. But that’s because only half the runways can be used – planes can’t use adjacent runways. Bad weather doesn’t mean any particular runway is dangerous.
Some runways might get just as much traffic, it’s just that the runways right beside wouldn’t get any traffic at all. - We know that good weather allows up to 60 planes to land. But we don’t know if the airport is always working at max capacity.
- Actually, in good weather, adjacent runways are used simultaneously, without delay.
- CORRECT. Airlines base their schedules on good weather. In good weather, more than 30 planes can land per hour. Up to 60 planes in fact.
- There are many reasons a flight can be delayed even if weather is good. Mechanical problems, for example.
More Resources for Most Strongly Supported Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Most Strongly Supported questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers most strongly supported questions.
Thanks for these posts Graeme, they’re great. This is a rarity, but I think you actually misunderstood the stimulus, at least with respect to (A). I got this one problem correct, but had trouble seeing why (A) was wrong (and I’m still having trouble understanding why it’s wrong). The stimulus is not saying that “only half the runways can be used [during poor weather],” as you’re purporting. It’s saying that the airport’s runways are “too close to each other to allow simultaneous use of adjacent runways.” Thus, during poor weather, while one plane is landing another plane cannot land or takeoff on the adjacent runway. You could say that during poor weather the landing and taking off of planes on adjacent runways is “staggered” as opposed to “simultaneous.”
If you figure out why (A) is incorrect I’d love to hear. Thanks again!
What I wrote may be unclear. There are two runways. Normally, you can use both. But in storms you can’t use both simaultaneously. So you can only use half the runways (at once). That was perhaps an unclear way of saying that you can only use one out of every two runways.
But that doesn’t mean any particular runway is dangerous. Normally, you can land 30 planes on a runway in an hour. That’s still possible in poor weather. You just can’t use the adjacent runway.
Which is why total capacity is down from 60 to 30. But that doesn’t mean A is true. You could land all 30 planes on one runway, and leave the other one unused.
Make sense?
We can say half the runways are out of commission because the number cut exactly from 60 to 30, and because the cause is clearly listed as lack of simultaneous use. Otherwise I wouldn’t be so certain about half.
I got this one wrong during homework for the Beta course and I had the same question as Joshua. Your clarification here has cleared it up for me now. “…on any one runway” in A is the key to understanding in my mind. I missed that caveat when answering and during my first review.
Thanks!