Logical Reasoning · Principle
PrepTest 132 · Section 2 · Question 13
Phase 1 (your first ~400 questions): read the guidance, then answer. No clock.
Step 1 · Pre-Question Guidance · read this first
- “can cost”
- “more than”
- “saves”
Playground logic
The class's fancy musical sharpener was supposed to save pencils. But kids keep playing with it, so it costs more class minutes than it saves in pencils. The principle: a thing meant to save one resource can cost more of another.
Step 2 · The kid story
The Singing Sharpener
Ms. Rivera bought a pencil sharpener that plays a song. "This one is gentle," she said. "It won't chew up our pencils." By Tuesday, there was a line. Tommy sharpened his pencil four times just to hear the song. Kevin danced. Marcus claimed he was 'testing' it. By Friday, the class had lost almost a whole math lesson waiting in line. Priya did the math with her juice box in hand. "We saved maybe five pencils. We lost forty minutes. That sharpener costs more in class time than it ever saves in pencils." Lulu wrote the rule on her clipboard: Something that saves one thing can cost more of a different thing, if people can't stop playing with it. Ms. Rivera unplugged the song. The class booed. Then went back to fractions.
Step 3 · Try the model question
Buying the singing pencil sharpener can cost the class far more in lost lesson time than it ever saves in pencils. Students can't stop playing with a sharpener that plays a song.
Which one of the following best fits the principle Priya's reasoning illustrates?
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Case of the Chatty Robot
A bakery sued its supplier over a robot greeter. "Your Honor," said Mr. Whitfield, for the bakery, "this robot was sold to save us the cost of a cashier. But customers stand around asking it riddles for twenty minutes. The line goes out the door. We lose more in walk-away customers than we ever saved in wages." The judge stroked her chin. "So the gadget saved one kind of cost and created a bigger cost of a different kind." "Exactly," said Mr. Whitfield. "Savings on paper. Losses in the doorway." The supplier's lawyer muttered something about how good the riddles were.
Step 5 · Work the real question
Open PrepTest 132, Section 2, Question 13 in your official copy from LSAC (for example in LawHub) and read it there.
Your answer
How to apply it
Turn the argument into a skeleton with blanks: an item meant to save cost X; a side effect from how people react to it; that side effect costs more of a different kind Y than the X it saves. Then check each choice for every part: two different kinds of cost, the item causing the hidden cost, and the hidden cost outweighing the savings. Reject choices that only compare prices or times without that structure.