Reading Comprehension · Law
PrepTest 143 · Section 2 · Passage 2
Questions 8–14
Before you start
Open PrepTest 143, Section 2 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 8–14, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: describes how a problem is handled today
- P2: lists what the author thinks is wrong with that system
- P3: builds a chain of reasons to a proposed replacement
- P4: raises a likely objection and answers it with an accepted principle
Step 2 · The kid passage
The Dessert Table Problem
Maple School's lunch helper rule is all about looks. The helper handbook says helpers should avoid unfairness and anything that looks unfair. A helper must step away from the dessert table whenever someone could sensibly wonder whether she is fair. In some grades a kid in line may ask for a different helper; in others, only the helper decides. Priya thinks this is a mistake. The rule is fuzzy: it never says whose wondering counts (the kid in line? the principal?) or how to judge. Worse, watching only looks misses favoritism nobody can see, sometimes not even the helper. So a perfectly fair helper gets moved because her cousin is in line, while a sneaky favorite-picker nobody suspects stays put. The job of a lunch helper is to settle who gets what. That works only if each split is well reasoned. So the best fix is to make helpers show their reasoning. Drop the 'different helper' requests. Instead, a helper who steps away writes why, and a helper who stays writes the counting rule used for each split on the dessert chart. Marcus objects: a helper could write a fine-looking rule while secretly slipping her best friend the bigger slice. Priya answers: if a careful kid checking the chart finds nothing wrong with the rule, there is no complaint. The school's long-standing lunch rule says you can complain only if you got shorted. If a fair helper would have made the same split for the written reason, nobody got shorted.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Pie Contest Scorecards
In a fictional county fair court, Aunt Rosa asks Judge Pemberton to throw out a pie contest because one taster once shared a picnic blanket with a baker. Mr. Whitfield rises. 'Your Honor, removing tasters for picnic blankets catches the wrong people. A friendly taster may be perfectly fair, and a grumpy one may hold a secret grudge nobody sees.' He proposes something else: every taster shows a scorecard with the reasons for each score. 'If a careful reader finds the reasons sound, then no baker was cheated. And our fair's oldest rule says you may protest only when you were actually cheated.' The judge reads the scorecards. Crust, filling, bake: all sound. 'Protest denied. Nice suspenders.'