Reading Comprehension · Law
PrepTest 145 · Section 1 · Passage 2
Questions 8–13
Before you start
Open PrepTest 145, Section 1 in your official copy from LSAC and read the passage for Questions 8–13, using the structure guide below. The passage is not reprinted here.
Structure guide
- P1: raises a question and summarizes one group's answer, with a made-up number example
- P2: presents another part of that group's view: what they say should not count
- P3: raises an objection, explaining a factor the view must include and reworking the example to show the problem
- P4: adds evidence and a bad consequence, then concludes that another factor must be added to the group's method
Step 2 · The kid passage
The Sticker Grab Problem
How big a penalty should a kid get for grabbing class-store stickers without paying? The Math Club says only the payback should count: the grabber returns more than they grabbed. If Marcus sneaks 3 stickers and has to give back 4, the Math Club calls that fair.
The Math Club also says it should not matter that the class finds some grabs nastier than others, or that the class wants to show it cares about, say, the last gold star. The rule, they say, should shrink sticker piles, not judge whether a kid is good or bad.
But this plan is hard, maybe impossible, to use. Honest math must count the catch rate: how often grabbers get caught. Ms. Rivera cannot see every grab, and lower catch rates need bigger penalties. Otherwise a kid who gets caught only 1 time in 10 could figure that grabbing again and again still pays, even with a penalty a bit bigger than the haul. So honest math means 3 grabbed stickers must cost not 4 but at least 30.
The plan only works if catch rates are high enough to ignore, like half the time. Lulu's clipboard survey says the real rate is closer to 1 in 10. Such penalties could wipe out a kid's whole collection and shut down Tommy's trading table, which a dozen classmates use. So something besides math, like how serious the class thinks a grab is, must count too, so penalties are workable as well as fair.
Step 4 · The courtroom tale
The Toll Bridge Hearing
At the fictional Pine Hollow toll bridge, drivers sometimes zoomed past without paying. Lawyer Delgado told the judge, "Simple. Fine them a bit more than the toll. Feelings do not belong in fines." Mr. Whitfield stood and snapped his suspenders. "Your Honor, the camera catches only one driver in ten. If the fine is barely above the toll, skipping still pays. Do the honest math and the fine must be ten times bigger, and then a delivery driver loses her truck and her whole crew loses work." The judge frowned. "So the math alone gives fines that are either too small to work or too big to bear?" "Yes. We need one more thing on the scale: how serious the town thinks skipping is."