Reading Comprehension · Law
PrepTest 130 · Section 2 · Passage 3
Questions 14–20
Before you start
Open PrepTest 130, Section 2 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 14–20, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: introduces a theory held by its supporters and lays out the two premises it rests on
- P2: explains how the theory works, borrows an idea from another area as support, and applies it to the theory's own domain
- P3: reports the advantage supporters claim, then the author raises one objection and a bigger one, backed by a made-up example that exposes a hidden reliance
Step 2 · The kid passage
The Backpack Theory of Saved Seats
Some fifth graders, led by Marcus, defend the Backpack Theory of lunch-table seats. They say the right to a saved seat is simply an outgrowth of owning a thing you can hold. The theory needs every saved seat to be marked by some object, like a backpack or a lunchbox. It also assumes that owners may do what they like with their stuff, as long as nobody else gets hurt: move it, hide it, give it away.
If you put your own backpack on a chair, the theory says, that spot becomes yours. And when you hand something to a friend, you can keep a few rights for yourself. Kids do this all the time: Owen lends his bike but keeps Fridays. So, say the theorists, setting a backpack down is the official sign that you mean to keep the chair, along with the right to pass the chair along to a pal.
Marcus brags that the theory's best feature is that nobody has to believe in invisible "dibs." Fair enough when a real backpack sits there for the whole lunch. But the theory cannot handle the everyday rule that a shout of "save me a spot!" counts. Worse, it forgets that deciding whom to sit with matters more than the object on the chair. Picture this: Tommy asks Lulu to hold a chair, and Lulu sets down her own lunchbox. The object belongs to Lulu, so Tommy has no claim at all, unless Tommy already owned his dibs.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Borrowed Leash
At the Maple Street Small Claims Court, a lawyer named Ms. Pell argued that the right to walk the neighborhood dog belongs to whoever owns the leash. "Simple, Your Honor. No leash, no claim." Mr. Whitfield snapped his suspenders. "Lovely when there is a leash. But Grandpa whistles and the dog trots beside him with no leash at all. And watch this: my client asked a neighbor kid to walk the dog using the kid's own leash. Under Ms. Pell's rule, the kid now holds the walking right, and my client, who arranged everything, holds nothing. The only way out is to admit my client owned the arrangement itself." The judge nodded. "A rule that runs on leashes alone seems to need something it promised to avoid."