PrepTest 104 · Section 1 · Question 21

The Wipe Exemption

The art room was a disaster: paint on the chairs, glue on the floor, glitter on the ceiling somehow. Ms. Rivera decided to stop sending any new supplies to the art club until they cleaned up. No paper, no paint, nothing. Nadia raised her hand. "Please keep sending the cleaning wipes. A room cannot stay messy when every kid has wipes in their hands." Marcus nodded. "Airtight!" Priya sipped her juice box. "One question. Who gets the box of wipes?" Lulu checked her clipboard. "Last time, the club president kept every supply in her desk drawer." Nadia's face fell. Her argument only works if the wipes actually reach every kid. If the president hoards them, the room stays messy, wipes or no wipes. Tommy offered to hand out the wipes himself, in exchange for candy.

Ms. Rivera plans to stop all supplies to the art club until its room is clean. Nadia argues that cleaning wipes should be the exception, since a room cannot stay messy when wipes are in every kid's hands.

Nadia's argument needs which of these to be true?

The Case of the Lighthouse Lamps

A harbor town banned all deliveries to a shipping firm that kept crashing boats. A lamp maker asked the judge to allow her lamps through. "No harbor stays dangerous when bright lamps are everywhere along the shore." Mr. Whitfield, for the town, stood up. "Where will these lamps go?" He called the firm's bookkeeper, who admitted, "The owner keeps all new equipment on his private dock." Mr. Whitfield faced the judge. "The lamp maker's whole argument rests on the lamps being spread along the shore. If they sit on one man's dock, the shore stays dark and the boats keep crashing." The judge agreed: the request depended on something nobody had shown.