Reading Comprehension · Law
PrepTest 118 · Section 2 · Passage 4
Questions 20–27
Before you start
Open PrepTest 118, Section 2 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 20–27, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: explains why a protection was created, then points to the burden it created and the uneven results that followed
- P2: lists what the protection covers and describes a first difficulty in applying it, with an example of a requirement that hurts the people claiming the protection
- P3: describes a second difficulty, illustrates it with one case, criticizes the ruling, and closes with the author's hope that a higher authority will do better
Step 2 · The kid passage
The Club Promise
Winning a club privilege is hard, and even once it is written down, a later rule change could wipe it out. So last fall the principal added a Club Promise to the handbook that locks in every club privilege already allowed. But she left it to each grade's student council to turn the Promise's broad words into exact decisions. The result? One council says yes, another says no, even though clubs keep asking.
The Promise names three privileges: a club gets a room and its supplies, a club runs its own meetings, and a club's old traditions are honored. But what counts as 'old'? The Promise means to honor long-running traditions, not fresh ones, so councils demand written proof that a tradition began before the new building opened. Trouble is, clubs mostly pass traditions along by word of mouth, not on paper.
Even a club that wins a privilege may not know what it won. Take rooms. Last spring the Chess Club, which clearly has a room, said 'having' it should mean full control, including lending the room out and trading away its supplies. The fourth-grade council instead decided the old rules only let clubs use a room, so it gave the club one corner for twenty minutes, barely enough for one board. That reading was far too stingy about what the old rules allowed. Sadly, the Chess Club probably won't win unless it takes its case to the all-school council, which, let's hope, will take the Promise more seriously.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Faded Bakery Sign
The town of Puddleton promised to protect every shop sign already approved, then left each neighborhood board to decide what that meant. Boards disagreed wildly. Mr. Whitfield stood up for a baker whose painted sign was approved long ago. 'Your Honor, the board says the baker may keep the sign but not repaint it, because the old approval only said keep.' He snapped his suspenders. 'Yet three other boards read keep to include upkeep. This board understood the promise just fine: protect what was already allowed. It simply shrank what was already allowed.' The judge frowned at the board's lawyer. 'So the problem is not the promise itself. It is how narrowly you read the old approval.' Mr. Whitfield bowed. 'And the baker hopes a higher court will see it.'