LR Question 23 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Businessperson: Because the parking area directly in…
QUESTION TYPE: Argument Evaluation
CONCLUSION: If the maintenance had been done on another day, I would have been on time.
REASONING: The parking lot in front of the building was closed for maintenance. I had to spend 15 minutes looking for parking elsewhere, and so I was a few minutes late.
ANALYSIS: This seems like a good argument. So to answer the question, think about ways it could be wrong. For example: was the lot useable before maintenance? Is it normally easy to park there?
___________
- This was the first question that occurred to me. If the maintenance was emergency maintenance, then perhaps the businessperson couldn’t have parked even if the maintenance had been done later. e.g. the parking lot was flooded with sewage due to a burst pipe.
There are two reasons this isn’t right. i. “Closed for maintenace” implies that the maintenance itself is the cause. Usually you can choose when to maintain something. If the lot had been closed due to flood, it might have said “closed due to repair”. ii. If the cause of the closure was merely maintenance, then knowing the reasons for choosing that day are incredibly irrelevant. The reason might be “the boss felt like it”.
Whereas, the normal time required to find parking (answer C) is always relevant, and this makes it a much stronger answer. - Other attendees are irrelevant. This argument is only about the businessperson.
- CORRECT. The wording isn’t obvious, but knowing this would let us know whether the businperson had enough time. They arrived about 10 minutes early (they took 15 min to find other parking, and were a few min late). So, if parking patterns normally allow people to find parking in 10 min or less, then the businessperson would have been on time. If not, then they still would have been late.
- It doesn’t matter what happens to the businessperson generally. We only care what would have happened to them that day.
e.g. If you usually leave an hour late, but one day you’re set to be on time, then only conditions on that one day are relevant to determining lateness on that day. - The importance is irrelevant. The argument is only about lateness itself.
More Resources for Argument Evaluation Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Argument Evaluation questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers argument evaluation questions.
This question is really bad because “parking pattern” is way too vague. The only reason I got the question wrong is because I didn’t understand what they meant by that. I wouldn’t be surprised i this question got removed from the test and became unscored.
I get why it feels vague, but I’m not sure that qualifies it as a question that will be removed.
It just means how easy or hard it normally is to find parking when the lot isn’t closed. The argument assumes the only reason the businessperson was late was the lot closure, so if parking is usually scarce anyway, that assumption falls apart.
Maybe “parking availability” would have been a better term to describe what C means, but I still think it’s clearly the best answer.
Why are there two correct answers listed?
Thanks for catching this! The correct answer is C. The page will be updated shortly.
Hi Graeme,
Thanks so much for posting all of these explanations! I’ve been using them to study and they’re extremely helpful!
I’m a bit confused by this explanation, because you cite both A and C as the correct answer. It seems like you prefer A over C though, but the answer key has C as correct. Do you know why C is a better answer than A?
Thanks!
Annika
Thanks for catching this! The correct answer is indeed C. This page will be updated shortly.